Effort and Reward under Capitalism

[BobKKKindle$]

The people who work the hardest under the capitalist system are often those that are rewarded the least for their efforts. In the developing world there are people who have to have to work for long hours in unsafe conditions, and they are given wages that are barely sufficient to cover their basic costs of survival, let alone provide their children with a decent education so that they might be able to avoid a similar kind of life. For example, the average hourly wage for garment manufacturers for workers in Vietnam is $0.26/hr (source (http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1369)) far less than the value of the good they produce, or the retail price paid by consumers in the developed world. The governments of developing countries are being forced to remove regulations concerning the rights of their workers, to create conditions that are favorable to investors. Many governments have given firms assurances that they will not face strikes, by restricting the rights of workers to organize in defense of their interests.

At the same time, executives in the developed countries, where the companies are located, are given a broad range of benefits as part of their jobs, are able to retire at a young age, and they are accorded enormous salaries, which include stock-related rewards such as options, far beyond what they deserve, given the lack of effort involved in the work they do. I concede that managers are given the task of make decisions about how production is organized - but this kind of work is not so strenuous or difficult so as to justify their income, and managers are ultimately not necessary - in the absence of the people who actually do the physical work, they are useless, and their tasks could be handled by the working class through a system of factory councils - as the experiences of the Spanish Revolution (as well as contemporary examples in Argentina) have demonstrated.

Shareholders - the people who actually own the enterprise and receive profits in the form of dividends - often have no direct connection to the enterprise (especially if they invest through mutual funds) and their "work" consists of electing someone to make decisions on their behalf. Why should they be able to make a profit on the work of other people?

This disparity in earnings is a direct result of capitalism - workers do not own the goods they produce, instead, they have to accept the wage that is offered, because if they try and gain a higher wage, the firm will choose to employ someone else who is willing to work for less, or move to another country where wage rates are lower. Wage-labour is not 'voluntary" it's a result of material coercion - if you refuse to work, then you won't have any way to purchase food, you'll eventually starve. Something is only "voluntary" if there are other options available- and starving is not a viable option.

Can you seriously argue that the incomes of the rich are a reliable indication of how much effort they put in, or how important they are to the production of the good?

Many of the people who benefit from capitalism actually don't product anything of value, and yet they are still able to reap huge rewards. For example, currency speculators - what have they done to deserve their wealth? Their "activity" is harmful - it results in sudden changes in the value of a country's currency, and, consequently, income instability. How can you defend this kind of activity? Why should people be able to make money through such unproductive activity?

The more I learn about conditions in the developing world, the more historically obsolete capitalism appears.

[pusher robot]

Shareholders - the people who actually own the enterprise and receive profits in the form of dividends - often have no direct connection to the enterprise (especially if they invest through mutual funds) and their "work" consists of electing someone to make decisions on their behalf. Why should they be able to make a profit on the work of other people?

Because they underwrite the risk. An enterprise needs investment if it is to have a chance at being profitable. But many - probably most - enterprises fail to be profitable. The investors - the shareholders - lose their investment when this happens. The workers who built the factory and installed the machinery are still compensated for their labor, even though they labored for an enterprise that failed to profit, because they don't bear much, if any, of the risk.



Wage-labour is not 'voluntary" it's a result of material coercion - if you refuse to work, then you won't have any way to purchase food, you'll eventually starve. Something is only "voluntary" if there are other options available- and starving is not a viable option.

I realize this is accepted as an article of faith by the communist flock, but it simply isn't true. There are plenty of opportunities for self-employment, independent contracting, and business ownership for those that are willing to pursue those goals and take the chances. To pretend otherwise is just dishonest.


Many of the people who benefit from capitalism actually don't product anything of value, and yet they are still able to reap huge rewards. For example, currency speculators - what have they done to deserve their wealth? Actually, they perform a useful service. To profit as a speculator, you must have keener insight into reality than most participants in a market. In the case of currency, the exchange rates that work to determine equivalent values of different currency are determine by a wide market and may not always be accurate. Speculators who correctly determine that there is an inaccuracy take actions which help to push the rate closer to the accurate point.

Let me turn the question around and ask you, what have they done to not deserve their wealth? They make fair exchanges with other people who freely and voluntarily trade with them. Nobody is forced to buy or sell to a speculator - in fact those who do, do so because they believe it is profitable for them to do so. If, at the end of these voluntary exchanges, the speculator ends up with a surplus, by what moral right is he not entitled to it?

[Joby]

I think Pusher loves threads like these, so he can devour it and leave the rest of us Oiers almost no table scraps Lol



The more I learn about conditions in the developing world, the more historically obsolete capitalism appears.


The more you learn about the non-capitalist world, the more obsolete capitalsim appears? :confused:

[Os Cangaceiros]

The more you learn about the non-capitalist world, the more obsolete capitalsim appears? :confused:

The "non-capitalist world"?

[Joby]

The "non-capitalist world"?

Yes, those countries which refuse to allow the basic prerequisites for Capitalism to appear, usually because they have an egomaniac dictator who won't allow the free market to emerge, or are lacking one and face severe sectarian strife/crime.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yes, those countries which refuse to allow the basic prerequisites for Capitalism to appear, usually because they have an egomaniac dictator who won't allow the free market to emerge, or are lacking one and face severe sectarian strife/crime.

How would you classify these restricted market economies run by dictators? What word would you use to describe the economic arrangement?

[Joby]

How would you classify these restricted market economies run by dictators? What word would you use to describe the economic arrangement?

Feudal Shitpalism

[Os Cangaceiros]

Feudal Shitpalism

Interesting, because when I read that statement by bobkindles, I intepreted it more as being more about the areas such as much of the Global South. Areas where many people, it can be argued, have not felt the benefits of neoliberal capitalism.

[Bud Struggle]

I think Pusher loves threads like these, so he can devour it and leave the rest of us Oiers almost no table scraps Lol


Damn straight!

I read his posts and there's NOTHING left to say. :D

Let me add something on topic so Jazzratt doesn't zapp me--;)

Capitalist add risk to their enterprises. They add their money on an uncertain project (different than a worker getting a job with a "sure" wage.) And there is a return for risk--sometimes good, sometimes not, sometimes financial loss, sometimes bankruptcy, but there is always a return.

It's just something Marx didn't understand well enough to put in his little book. Risk along with labor is the cost of a product--not just labor.

You Communists might want to amend your copies of Das Kapital with that little correction. :D

[BobKKKindle$]

The idea of risk is simply a myth that bears no resemblance to material reality. In the imperialist stage of capitalist developing banks become more important as a source of funds for business expansion, and so are closely tied to industrial capital; recent events have shown that when a major bank faces the danger of bankruptcy, the government provides support by underwriting the banks so as to protect the interests of investors, such that there is no "risk" involved.

Even if an enterprise is allowed to fail, and the capitalist is left without a firm, there is still no risk, as the capitalist will be able to use their social relations to gain a position of management in another firm, whereas a worker will be made unemployed and may not be able to find another position, such that they will, in the absence of redundancy payment, be forced to use their savings to support dependents until work is available. Executives frequently accept large redundancy packages (or "golden parachutes") if they know that an enterprise is likely to fail.

[Green Dragon]

[quote=bobkindles;1121859]The idea of risk is simply a myth that bears no resemblance to material reality.

The idea of risk is based upon the reality that nobody can see the future. Communism, socialism, anarchism does not bestow upon people that power. Even decisions made by the democratic of worker councils, carry with it risk because they too, cannot say with a 100% knowledge that their choices are correct. They could be wrong.
So the socialist proposal is that the entire community bears that burden of the risk of that decision. If they are wrong in their decision, they work and receive NO compensation, no benefits for their labor.
The capitalist risk involves loss by the capitalist. The worker on the other hand, is compensated for his labor, regardless of whether the choice fails. It would seem the capitalist proposal is far more fair and decent to the worker than the socialist one.

[Demogorgon]

The matter of risk is the regular Capitalist argument, but it does not bear up. It is at least better than certain other arguments (supplying time.... :lol: )

Anyway the problem with risk is that it does not follow that someone should be rewarded for a risk, just because it is successful. I took a risk the other day, I let my brother give me and the dog a lift to the vet (he is an appalling driver). Where is my reward?

Don't be silly Demo, I here you cry, the reason the capitalist is rewarded for successful risk is that he (or she) performs a socially useful role in the risk. If it pays off all benefit, if it fails only he suffers. Well leaving aside the dubious nature of this claim, the capitalist is claiming reward for a system set up for their benefit. It is true the current system of investment requires risk, but there is no need to have the current system of investment. It could quite plausibly be socialised so that society bears the cost and benefits of risk as a whole.

Further there is also a conflation here of bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie. This is understandable as Capitalist thought rarely separates the two but it has a nasty habit of appealing to what is definitely the latter in its arguments in order to justify the former. A small businessman certainly takes a big risk in setting up their own business, and generally speaking even if it pays out the rewards will be fairly modest. One can hardly feel animosity against such a person, can they?

The trouble is that such people are not really doing anyone any harm, but big business definitely does do harm and does so at much lesser risk to itself. It should be emphasissed here, because this is something socialists sometimes forget, that the really big problem is not so much profit as it is interest. It is with interest that the real exploitation takes place. Consider banking. Whatever happens the bank always wins. Some customers will fail to meet their debts sure, but a bank can guarantee that it will always be turning a profit because the risk is so spread out.

Furthermore, even if it does go wrong and over-lend, there is always the central bank or Government itself willing to step in and bail it out. Consider the case of Northern Rock here. The bank fucked up, the Bank Of England moved to save it, as a knock on effect the customers have lost out badly, but the shareholders are getting compensation from the Government and the Chief Executives are getting millions in pay offs. For ears and ears that bank made millions in profit and as it turns ut, for the big capitalists at the top, there was no risk! That is hardly an uncommon situation either.

Finally it is simply not true to say that workers in a firm are taking no risk themselves. Even if you discount unemployment as a risk, you are living in a fool's paradise if you think a failing business will always manage to pay its workers. The big businesses will pay off their workers if they fold, but a lot of small businesses simply aren't capable of doing so. Their employees can take them to court and they will always be ordered to pay out, but often the money is simply not there. And for a lot of us mere mortals, a months missed wages is a very serious matter indeed, rent and mortgage payments don't pay themselves, food does not appear on the table of its pwn accord etc.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I think Pusher loves threads like these, so he can devour it and leave the rest of us Oiers almost no table scraps Lol



Between Pusher Robot and the plagiarist Dejavu, I would say "OIers" are desperately in need of some additional ammunition in their intellectual armory. :D

The argument of risk bears no water. Capitalist apologists can neither indicate the outcome of risk, nor draw a direct line of correlation between that and the pay off. Thousands of people take a risk each year and lose. Their risk isn't being rewarded. Furthermore, by the time a company has stabilized its sources of income there isn't much risk involved for the top.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

The idea of risk is based upon the reality that nobody can see the future. Communism, socialism, anarchism does not bestow upon people that power. Even decisions made by the democratic of worker councils, carry with it risk because they too, cannot say with a 100% knowledge that their choices are correct. They could be wrong.
So the socialist proposal is that the entire community bears that burden of the risk of that decision. If they are wrong in their decision, they work and receive NO compensation, no benefits for their labor.
The capitalist risk involves loss by the capitalist. The worker on the other hand, is compensated for his labor, regardless of whether the choice fails. It would seem the capitalist proposal is far more fair and decent to the worker than the socialist one.
No. You're wrong again. When the capitalist botches up his investment, workers are laid off and their wages cut to compensate for any losses.

Yes, while a capitalist can lose $20 million from putting money into Snake Purses, he's not hurting like the guy who just lost his $25/hr job. A 5% return on one billion dollars is 50 million. Not so bad...

While we're on this subject, I think it's appropriate to bring up some history. This same line of logic concerning luck was used by monarchs during the early and middle stages of feudalism to reinforce class relations. I'm sure you've heard of the motto, "we feed, we pray, we fight, and we rule." When wars were fought between kings, it was argued that the aristocrats had the most to lose since all their land, possessions, and livelihoods would be taken. Here we are again - only now capitalists are claiming they have the most to lose on the market. :rolleyes:

[Robert]

the more historically obsolete capitalism appearsYes, which is why communism is making such spectacular gains everywhere it is tried.

Look, kids, if I work hard at a wage and save money by living in a small room and spending less on beer and women than you do, I am going to save money. Presumably I am allowed, in any sane society, to put the savings in a bank, piggy or otherwise. When I have saved, say, $15,000, which is not unrealistic, especially if I share the room with my equally industrious wife, I am presumably free and definitely desirous of opening a small restaurant or cabinet shop. Now, do you want a job in my restaurant? If so, come on in. I'll show you how to make moo goo gai pan and pot stickers. Or teach you the difference between varnish and shellac. I'll pay you minimum wage. As I prosper, I'll either give you raises to keep you or run the risk of losing you to Dragon's restaurant down the street. You can save your money if you want, or you can piss it away in some bar *****ing with your fellow malcontents about how unfair life is. I don't care.

This is not my personal story, but it is the story of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Now, guess why they're here and not in Cuba or Vietnam?

There is admittedly a problem with this that none of the capitalists here but me will recognize: there may come a point, if I am lucky and talented (and I am) when my life of leisure is no longer a result of my initiative and hard work, but rather the result of interest. I have accumulated so much excess cash now that even simple interest, never mind stocks and bonds, pays me more per year than your labor does you. There is something inequitable about that in my opinion. But that's what a progressive tax code addresses. You don't have to murder me and my family, and destroy my restaurant by violent revolution in order to redress that inequity. Just tax my interest more than your wage and use the taxes to pay for schools and health clinics. Don't tax me too much or I'll close the restaurant. If you don't mind. Or even if you do.

[Fedorov]

Look, kids, if I work hard at a wage and save money by living in a small room and spending less on beer and women than you do, I am going to save money. Presumably I am allowed, in any sane society, to put the savings in a bank, piggy or otherwise. When I have saved, say, $15,000, which is not unrealistic, especially if I share the room with my equally industrious wife, I am presumably free and definitely desirous of opening a small restaurant or cabinet shop. Now, do you want a job in my restaurant? If so, come on in. I'll show you how to make moo goo gai pan and pot stickers. Or teach you the difference between varnish and shellac. I'll pay you minimum wage. As I prosper, I'll either give you raises to keep you or run the risk of losing you to Dragon's restaurant down the street. You can save your money if you want, or you can piss it away in some bar *****ing with your fellow malcontents about how unfair life is. I don't care.Yes, call us kids and demean us, this is going far. 15,00 to start a restaurant? Where do you live? Thats not enough for a down payment. I'm sure the 22 million Americans that live off of food stamps do so because they are lazy bastards that only spend money on beer and women.


This is not my personal story, but it is the story of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Now, guess why they're here and not in Cuba or Vietnam?Yes, why don't you Compare a little island and Vietnam to the industrial might of Europe and America. Cuba is better off than it was under Batista and Vietnam is not communist so you piss off.

Yes, only your taxes pay for schools and hospitals. Even though medicine is a business and is bullshit in America if you aren't well off. Oh wait 35,000 a year for college? Hardly fair I suppose. Its not like every other capitalist and non-capitalist society had a lack of these.

[Intelligitimate]

When Libertards bring up the stupid risk argument, I just say: the proletariat will happily relieve the capitalist class of this great burden of "risk".

But the argument is just stupid. There is no risk to the bourgeoisie, as the recent Bear Sterns bailout shows. The capitalist state privatizes profit and has the public assumes all the risk anyway.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Yes, which is why communism is making such spectacular gains everywhere it is tried.I would say many planks of socialism which were extended into the developed worlds' capitalist system to quell the more apparent problems inherited from markets have been a great successes. Consequently, Adam Smith would have embraced such changes.


When I have saved, say, $15,000, which is not unrealistic, especially if I share the room with my equally industrious wife, I am presumably free and definitely desirous of opening a small restaurant or cabinet shop.
$15,000? What are you going to open, a half-decent Subway franchise? You better rethink that strategy before you pitch it out there - maybe take a few business classes and reassess yourself. $15,000 will not carry any retail business - your operating income will be nonexistent. I don't know precisely where you live, but for a decent spot of land here you would have to pay about $3,000/month for rent, and - at the new minimum wage - one full-time employee would cost you $15,000 per year. Successful businesses often go in the red for 2-4 years. And don't expect banks to help you out - they're there to catch you before you can incorporate. They're very skeptical about paying for business loans less than $200,000.


This is not my personal story, but it is the story of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Now, guess why they're here and not in Cuba or Vietnam?Really now. Hundreds of thousands of refugees became business owners?

Are you on crack or something?

Furthermore, why do you confuse capitalists with small business owners?


There is admittedly a problem with this that none of the capitalists here but me will recognize: there may come a point, if I am lucky and talented (and I am)You're apparently dumb as a rock when it comes to money...


But that's what a progressive tax code addresses. Our tax is progressive insofar as that the rate increases on reported income after certain brackets are met. Dividends are not, have never been, and will never be taxed appropriately. Even now thanks to the conservative bent to economic policies in the last 30 years income isn't taxed appropriately. The top 1% own over 40% of the country's wealth, but only have to pay 35% on income made above $357,700 - with some nice write-offs and bonuses to go along with it.

Most of the burden falls on the cusp of the working class, and to a lesser extent the petit-bourgeoisie.


You don't have to murder me and my family,Nobody here wants to do that. Although, if I had the money to allow it, I would pay for you to take classes on business.


and destroy my restaurant by violent revolution in order to redress that inequity. Your petty business (which has a 95% failure rate even before we look into your absurd $15,000 lift-off proposal) is no concern for us. There is a vocal group of Leftists who do not advocate automatically getting rid of small businesses that follow sole proprietorship and partnership examples. The socialist element to the economy would gradually make private enterprise obsolete.

[Psy]

The idea of risk is based upon the reality that nobody can see the future. Communism, socialism, anarchism does not bestow upon people that power. Even decisions made by the democratic of worker councils, carry with it risk because they too, cannot say with a 100% knowledge that their choices are correct. They could be wrong.
So the socialist proposal is that the entire community bears that burden of the risk of that decision. If they are wrong in their decision, they work and receive NO compensation, no benefits for their labor.
The capitalist risk involves loss by the capitalist. The worker on the other hand, is compensated for his labor, regardless of whether the choice fails. It would seem the capitalist proposal is far more fair and decent to the worker than the socialist one.
The workers has to pay for every mistake of the capitalist. It is the workers that get laid off or have their wages rolled back when the capitalists screw up.

Even when the state bails out the capitalist it is paid through taxes the workers pay.

Workers can loot equipment when capitalists fail but for some strange reason capitalist look down on workers walking out with equipment when their laid off. :cool:

[Dejavu]

The people who work the hardest under the capitalist system are often those that are rewarded the least for their efforts.LOL.Couldn't disagree more.


In the developing world there are people who have to have to work for long hours in unsafe conditions, and they are given wages that are barely sufficient to cover their basic costs of survival, let alone provide their children with a decent education so that they might be able to avoid a similar kind of life. For example, the average hourly wage for garment manufacturers for workers in Vietnam is $0.26/hr (source) far less than the value of the good they produce, or the retail price paid by consumers in the developed world.Actually this can be a defense of capitalism. One cannot forget the productive results of someone working in a factory in the United States vis-a-vis working in a factory in Vietnam. A single laborer in the U.S. is far more productive ( per hour) than a single laborer in Vietnam and thus receives a higher wages based on his marginal productivity. The difference is capital accumulation in the work place. In the U.S. you have more capital intensive productivity which means a single laborer working with all that capital can produce more efficiently than a labor intensive industry in Vietnam. The U.S. started off much the same way Vietnam is right now. Lower wages but enough to make a living in the past because of slower productivity. As capital grew so did the productive capacity of workers which increased wages, shortened hours , and brought down prices of goods and its a big reason many in the United States can enjoy a higher standard of living. As capital investment improves in the developing countries they will also see better standards of living. China is an example that comes to mind.




The governments of developing countries are being forced to remove regulations concerning the rights of their workers, to create conditions that are favorable to investors. Many governments have given firms assurances that they will not face strikes, by restricting the rights of workers to organize in defense of their interests.Many of the governments in the developing countries are far from benevolent. They receive foreign aid and then spend it on themselves rather than the people. The government bureaucrats and dictators in those countries would hate to see the living standards of their people improve because it would make the people less dependent on their rhetoric. Because of despotic or semi-despotic governments in some of the third world there is virtually no private capital investment, the investment comes at the expense of taxpayers in the developed countries as government to government foreign 'aid.' Of course throwing money at poor countries with these kinds of governments only makes the situation worse.


At the same time, executives in the developed countries, where the companies are located, are given a broad range of benefits as part of their jobs, are able to retire at a young age, and they are accorded enormous salaries, which include stock-related rewards such as options, far beyond what they deserve, given the lack of effort involved in the work they do. If the company acquired its wealth through legitimate market processes such as pleasing consumers I see no problem with the wealth accumulated and distributed how the company sees fit. They deserve every penny.


I concede that managers are given the task of make decisions about how production is organized - but this kind of work is not so strenuous or difficult so as to justify their income, and managers are ultimately not necessary - in the absence of the people who actually do the physical work, they are useless, and their tasks could be handled by the working class through a system of factory councils - as the experiences of the Spanish Revolution (as well as contemporary examples in Argentina) have demonstrated.

It shows you know nothing of economics or the business world. If the capitalist and managerial roles were handled by workers' 'alliances' then that would require the workers to play the role of capitalists as well. There is no way around it because further production requires capital investment. The responsibility and consequences set on managers and investors are for more grave than the average worker who earns his wage for his hours no matter what , even if the product brings a loss in the market. Its investors and entrepreneurs that lose money, not labor.


Shareholders - the people who actually own the enterprise and receive profits in the form of dividends - often have no direct connection to the enterprise (especially if they invest through mutual funds) and their "work" consists of electing someone to make decisions on their behalf. Why should they be able to make a profit on the work of other people?Because they provide work for other people. Some people don't have a long time preference. Who is going to invest into the company? Workers? Ok , but then they have to risk sweating away at the job and take the chance that the final product wont sell well which is a loss for everyone, in other words, labor wouldn't get paid what they worked anyway. It would require every Joe on the street to be future forecasters and astute investors because the only source of capital investment would come from the workers themselves. The profit for investors comes from interest since people that invest capital into production advance payment to labor who want to get paid in the present ( obviously, you need to purchase things in order to live well.) Its socialist ignorance that believes investors will ALWAYS make a profit when this just isn't so and the rate of actual profit for most corporations is 1 to 5% and many times they're just happy if they break even. Investors take losses all the time but that doesn't prevent labor from getting paid even if the product brings about a loss.




This disparity in earnings is a direct result of capitalism - workers do not own the goods they produce, instead, they have to accept the wage that is offered, because if they try and gain a higher wage, the firm will choose to employ someone else who is willing to work for less, or move to another country where wage rates are lower. Wage-labour is not 'voluntary" it's a result of material coercion - if you refuse to work, then you won't have any way to purchase food, you'll eventually starve. Something is only "voluntary" if there are other options available- and starving is not a viable option.Workers need only worry if they demand a wage higher than the market price of labor for that particular industry. If all the problems could be solved with higher wages why not just increase all wages nationwide, for any job, to 100 bucks / hour ? Lets see how well that works. A basic rule of thumb about life is that you have to work some function , you have to exhaust some of your labor , in order to make a living, this has been constant all throughout history. So long as all people compete for scarce goods there will always be a need to work and strive for higher efficiency. This seems more like emotional reaction to basic reason and lacks any economic insight.


Can you seriously argue that the incomes of the rich are a reliable indication of how much effort they put in, or how important they are to the production of the good?Yes. If their wealth is earned through legitimate market processes, such as pleasing many people with their goods ( how else would they get rich?) then every dollar they earn is a vote to keep them in business. Only the government can keep around inefficient producers but the market will punish producers that do not please consumers. This is basic stuff and requires reasoning and not emotional outbursts due to lack of reasoning.


Many of the people who benefit from capitalism actually don't product anything of value, and yet they are still able to reap huge rewards. For example, currency speculators - what have they done to deserve their wealth? Their "activity" is harmful - it results in sudden changes in the value of a country's currency, and, consequently, income instability. How can you defend this kind of activity? Why should people be able to make money through such unproductive activity?The capitalists that use the government for subsidies through restricting competition or inhibiting the market certainly fall into this description. However, the legitimate producers are probably the greatest benefit to society. They produce many goods in the light of competition that consumers desire which makes monetary accessibility to these goods much more fluent for the common man. The investor and entrepreneur are always demonized but are really the unsung heroes. If it wasn't for forward looking investors and entrepreneurs we in the developed countries would still be working for 20 cents/ hour. Capital investment makes life better. It gives us comfort, less hours, higher wages, and lower prices so we can enjoy our lives a bit more. This is hardly unproductive but rather the very fabric of our well-being.


The more I learn about conditions in the developing world, the more historically obsolete capitalism appears.If it wasn't for capitalism you probably wouldn't live past 30 yrs old, you would definatly not have a computer, you would be toiling for scraps. If the developing countries keep on obtaining more capital their conditions will improve over time. The developed world didn't become wealthy over night, it took centuries to get to the level of capital development we enjoy now.


Capitalism allowed you to enjoy a relatively comfortable life, so comfortable that you have the ability to claim capitalism sucks. Thats real progress right there.

[BobKKKindle$]

This theory of wages is simply false, and can be disproved empirically. In the United States there have been consistent increases in productivity, and yet for all sections of the workforce, even the skilled sector, there has not been a corresponding increase in wages, and there have even been periods of falling real income. Firms will charge the lowest possible wage they are able to get away with, such that, in the absence of a union movement and government regulation, they will charge only what is necessary to allow the worker to keep working.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1747/3637/1600/wages_productivity.0.gif
file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Owner/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg

There are other glaring flaws to your argument, but I don't have time to respond now.

[Dejavu]

This theory of wages is simply false, and can be disproved empirically. In the United States there have been consistent increases in productivity, and yet for all sections of the workforce, even the skilled sector, there has not been a corresponding increase in wages, and there have even been periods of falling real income. Firms will charge the lowest possible wage they are able to get away with, such that, in the absence of a union movement and government regulation, they will charge only what is necessary to allow the worker to keep working.

Of course the growth in wages , particularly in the 20th century, has been inhibited but not by any act of the free market. Government (mis) management by way of inflation and income tax cuts into people's real wages deeply. These are the 'innovations' of social engineering. However, the case of the late 19th century is very different as real wealth increased for most people.

[Green Dragon]

The workers has to pay for every mistake of the capitalist. It is the workers that get laid off or have their wages rolled back when the capitalists screw up.


The workers pay even more when the socialist community screws up.
In that scenario, the worker receives little to no compensation for their labor.
In the capitalist community, they get paid for their work, even if the capitalist failed in his efforts.



Even when the state bails out the capitalist it is paid through taxes the workers pay.


Such a scenario would be the norm in a socialist community, since the workers as a whole are bearing the burden of the risk. Even those who have nothing whatsoever to do with the risk.



Workers can loot equipment when capitalists fail but for some strange reason capitalist look down on workers walking out with equipment when their laid off. :cool:


True. The civilised world looks down upon the recent example of Zimbabwe.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Of course the growth in wages , particularly in the 20th century, has been inhibited but not by any act of the free market. Government (mis) management by way of inflation and income tax cuts into people's real wages deeply. These are the 'innovations' of social engineering. However, the case of the late 19th century is very different as real wealth increased for most people.

You must enjoy spinning out fairy tales. First you take credit for someone else's work, then you throw support behind the defunct anarcho-capitalist theory, and now you're telling us neo-liberalism and Ronnie Reagan were pro-government.

Real income saw the largest growth in history from 1941-1972. The government, since that time, has been applying Friedman's "deregulation" and "free trade" rant like mad.

The growth you speak of in the 19th century was trivial compared to the one experienced by all countries using a "mixed economy."

Industrial Germany (social democracy) vs. industrial Britain. Germany wins. Faster growth. Better living conditions.
Industrial Japan (social democracy) vs. industrial Russia (pre-Lenin). Japan wins. Faster growth. Better living conditions.
Hong Kong -> Georgist land reform. Social programs.
South Korea -> Planning of natural resources. Social programs (public education).
France
Sweden
Norway
Switzerland

How is Somalia doing, by the way?

Face it, you're ideology is stuck in a rut deeper than anything communists find themselves in.

[Psy]

True. The civilised world looks down upon the recent example of Zimbabwe.

I was talking about bankruptcies in the USA, it is tradition for workers loot the company as your never going to see your pension or final wages thus you take payment for your labor in loot, besides since most companies also lay off security they are too busing looting themselves to stop you from looting. I don't see anything wrong with it, the company stole labor from the workers and so the workers take back value in assets in the company.

[Green Dragon]

I was talking about bankruptcies in the USA, it is tradition for workers loot the company as your never going to see your pension or final wages thus you take payment for your labor in loot, besides since most companies also lay off security they are too busing looting themselves to stop you from looting. I don't see anything wrong with it, the company stole labor from the workers and so the workers take back value in assets in the company.


I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here.

[Psy]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here.
When a major companies goes bust like Enron, it is customary for workers to get some of the value the company stole from them by looting from the company. While it won't make up for what the company stole from you it is better then not looting the company.

[Robert]

You're apparently dumb as a rock when it comes to money...I wonder if that's why I have so much of it?


Are you on crack?No. I do take a little Bordeaux with my evening meal, I confess.

Seriously, you're just going to go after major industrialists and leave small businesses alone? Kid yourself, but don't kid me. Revolutions are hard to contain, don't you think?

Second, how are you going to define what constitutes "small"? You're going to have Congress arbitrarily decree that you're "not interested" in my little dumpling shop? What about when I have 3 more? 10 more? Mcdonald's started with one restaurant. Subway, which you sneer at, presumably started as small. Of course, I guess you envision disbanding Congress and just outlawing all competition by decree. Good luck with that.

Leave well enough alone, friend. If the Chinese and the Russians are smart enough to figure out the facts of life, so are you.

[Zurdito]

[quote]

The idea of risk is based upon the reality that nobody can see the future. Communism, socialism, anarchism does not bestow upon people that power. Even decisions made by the democratic of worker councils, carry with it risk because they too, cannot say with a 100% knowledge that their choices are correct. They could be wrong.
So the socialist proposal is that the entire community bears that burden of the risk of that decision. If they are wrong in their decision, they work and receive NO compensation, no benefits for their labor.
The capitalist risk involves loss by the capitalist. The worker on the other hand, is compensated for his labor, regardless of whether the choice fails. It would seem the capitalist proposal is far more fair and decent to the worker than the socialist one.


If the person wants to take a "risk" with his own life, he's welcome to. Just leave everyone else out of it and don't presume the right to own and take risks, for your own personal gain, with socially produced infrastructure which we all depend on equally.

A capitalist is a rich kid flying a plane which he charged you to get on. Then as it crashes due to his reckless flying, he tells you over the tannoy, "hey it was my plane, so my risk, you were compensated for your fee when I let you on." Then of course he is the only one with a parachute.

[RGacky3]

Actually this can be a defense of capitalism. One cannot forget the productive results of someone working in a factory in the United States vis-a-vis working in a factory in Vietnam. A single laborer in the U.S. is far more productive ( per hour) than a single laborer in Vietnam and thus receives a higher wages based on his marginal productivity. The difference is capital accumulation in the work place. In the U.S. you have more capital intensive productivity which means a single laborer working with all that capital can produce more efficiently than a labor intensive industry in Vietnam. The U.S. started off much the same way Vietnam is right now. Lower wages but enough to make a living in the past because of slower productivity. As capital grew so did the productive capacity of workers which increased wages, shortened hours , and brought down prices of goods and its a big reason many in the United States can enjoy a higher standard of living. As capital investment improves in the developing countries they will also see better standards of living. China is an example that comes to mind.

If it were true, that good pay and decent living standards actually leads to higher profits, sweat shops would have been ended years ago.

Your analysis of increased wages and shorter hours in the US ignores the labor struggles that got those benefits, they wern't gained by benevolent Capitalists that wanted more productive workers.

Of coarse more capital investment (might) improve living conditions somewhat (without intense labor struggles), but the improvement is very un-proportional, meaning living conditions raise very little compared to teh wealth accumulted, imagen if they were proportional.


Many of the governments in the developing countries are far from benevolent. They receive foreign aid and then spend it on themselves rather than the people. The government bureaucrats and dictators in those countries would hate to see the living standards of their people improve because it would make the people less dependent on their rhetoric. Because of despotic or semi-despotic governments in some of the third world there is virtually no private capital investment, the investment comes at the expense of taxpayers in the developed countries as government to government foreign 'aid.' Of course throwing money at poor countries with these kinds of governments only makes the situation worse.

Is that so, so what about Saudi Arabia, Pre-Castro Cuba ... China, all the banana republics and so on, that have gotten a ton of foreign investment. Capitalists care about despotic governments only if it limits their profit, and many times it helps their profit.


The responsibility and consequences set on managers and investors are for more grave than the average worker who earns his wage for his hours no matter what , even if the product brings a loss in the market. Its investors and entrepreneurs that lose money, not labor.


They loose their (usually) disposable money, i.e. not their lively hood, hopefully they've diversified, labor looses everything, ever see a homeless guy on the street saying "Made a bad investment" If you did they guys an idiot, but you do see "lost my Job." The responsibility set on managers does'nt matter, no one asked the worker if they wanted someone else to be responsible for their work and if they were willing to take a lesser wage for it, those roles are not freely given, neither is the pay.


Because they provide work for other people. Some people don't have a long time preference. Who is going to invest into the company? Workers? Ok , but then they have to risk sweating away at the job and take the chance that the final product wont sell well which is a loss for everyone, in other words, labor wouldn't get paid what they worked anyway. It would require every Joe on the street to be future forecasters and astute investors because the only source of capital investment would come from the workers themselves. The profit for investors comes from interest since people that invest capital into production advance payment to labor who want to get paid in the present ( obviously, you need to purchase things in order to live well.) Its socialist ignorance that believes investors will ALWAYS make a profit when this just isn't so and the rate of actual profit for most corporations is 1 to 5% and many times they're just happy if they break even. Investors take losses all the time but that doesn't prevent labor from getting paid even if the product brings about a loss.

The workers not investing in their own job is not a matter of choice, its not like workers are just afriad of messing up (they are anyway, they don't want to get fired). Its a matter of ability, the Capitalists control the money, thus they control whats being produced, sure its a risk, but they have the luxury of taking that risks, workers don't.

Sure not all companies make it, but look at te big picture, massiave amounts of wealth is being made, and those who make it don't have it.


Yes. If their wealth is earned through legitimate market processes, such as pleasing many people with their goods ( how else would they get rich?) then every dollar they earn is a vote to keep them in business. Only the government can keep around inefficient producers but the market will punish producers that do not please consumers. This is basic stuff and requires reasoning and not emotional outbursts due to lack of reasoning.

Interesting since, most of the time the reasearch is being done by wage workers, the selling is being done by wage workers, so is the actual work, if you want to talk about legitimate market processes you can have no objection to a worker being paid exactly what he produces is worth on the market, and if he decides to have a sales man, or whatever, he can pay that person, if that were the case there would be no Capitalist.

Take away wealth inequalities and Capitalits are 100% unnessesary.


If it wasn't for capitalism you probably wouldn't live past 30 yrs old, you would definatly not have a computer, you would be toiling for scraps. If the developing countries keep on obtaining more capital their conditions will improve over time. The developed world didn't become wealthy over night, it took centuries to get to the level of capital development we enjoy now.

It took centuries of Slavery to make Rome the greatest city and Empire.

[Robert]

Of coarse more capital investment (might) improve living conditions somewhat (without intense labor struggles), but the improvement is very un-proportional, meaning living conditions raise very little compared to teh wealth accumulted, imagen if they were proportional.

Without investment, they won't improve at all. Even if you' re right, what's the alternative? Details, please.

[Dejavu]

You must enjoy spinning out fairy tales. First you take credit for someone else's work, then you throw support behind the defunct anarcho-capitalist theory, and now you're telling us neo-liberalism and Ronnie Reagan were pro-government.

Reagan's rhetoric against government meant little. His actions speak louder. Even the most astute modern liberals ( American social democrats) claim that Ronald Reagan expanded the size and scope of government tremendously. Even George W.Bush and Nixon ran on small government platforms but their actions are contrary to the rhetoric. I suggest reading the book listed below. Its an anti-conservative book written by an ardent American modern liberal ( social democrat), Bill Press:

http://www.amazon.com/Trainwreck-Conservative-Revolution-Moment-Soon/dp/0470182407/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product



Real income saw the largest growth in history from 1941-1972. The government, since that time, has been applying Friedman's "deregulation" and "free trade" rant like mad.

Please source your statistics. WW2 era saw a huge increase in income due to war production but, of course, people couldn't spend they're money on what they wanted during the war because over 33% of all industrial production ( actually more like close to 50%) was on war materials. A large portion of the male labor force was killed, which increased the value of all available labor in the states ( women mainly). I have a feeling I know what statistics you're going to pull up, the standard Keynesian based GNP put together by the government. I urge to you to look at 1946 and observe that 1946 shows the greatest depression we've ever had in history, on paper. Of course reality was a different story. I'm talking about real growth, not false prosperity due to inflation and war, so please source your claim. Friedman was far from a kosher free market supporter as he did support the purpose of a central bank and a govt enforced monopoly on money save trying to regulate the inflation not very successfully.

Btw, you really overdo the italics.




The growth you speak of in the 19th century was trivial compared to the one experienced by all countries using a "mixed economy."

Not if you're talking about real growth. Much of the 'growth' in the 20th century was a result of massive inflation, deficit spending, and reconstruction after the two largest wars the planet has ever seen mixed with some perpetual theater based wars. In terms of real wealth, a millionaire in the late 19th century was substantially more wealthy than a millionaire today.


Industrial Germany (social democracy) vs. industrial Britain. Germany wins. Faster growth. Better living conditions.

I thought we went over this. Germany did experience a boom but collapsed twice in the following years and the second reconstruction was , by admission of West German economists, a result of more liberal market policies. Big government Germany drove its people into suffering just as it try to buy them out ( unsuccessfully) with social programs. GB caught up late in the Industrial Revolution due to its massive government spending and corn laws in the earlier 19th century. It was the free market liberals that kicked off Britain into real growth around the same time the CM was written.




Industrial Japan (social democracy) vs. industrial Russia (pre-Lenin). Japan wins. Faster growth. Better living conditions.

Industrial ( Imperial Japan) vs Imperial Russia is a poor comparison. Japan still lagged behind western Europe considerably until it jettisoned many traces of mercantilism shortly after WW2.



Hong Kong -> Georgist land reform. Social programs.

At best, miniscule traces of Georgism. Hong Kong had a fully functional legal system strictly adhering to property rights. Tariffs were practically non existent ( something both Georgists and other free marketers advocate) and taxes were very low.


South Korea -> Planning of natural resources. Social programs (public education).

S.Korea , like Japan, shortly after its independence dumped planning for the most part. It opened up to the world as a free trade oasis and prospered. However, after 1979, more social programs were instituted and as a result theres more debt of individual consumers , bankruptcies, and a near zero savings rate which S.Korea is struggling with today.




France

France took a back seat to West Germany. France on scale is toward the bottom of developed countries in W.Europe.


Sweden

Didn't see a war and always kept a very unrestricted trade policy. The couple times the non social democrats took power they picked up the country from massive expenditures incurred by the economically ignorant social democrats ( stabilizing the currency, etc.)


Norway

Nominally involved with the war, didn't see much destruction and therefore was minimally inhibited by those circumstances.


Switzerland

Same as Sweden plus Switzerland has some of the best property rights on the planet.


How is Somalia doing, by the way?

Back to this? Read my other comments on Somalia. I'm sick of answering this in long posts just to have it ignored by people who neglect objectivity and fail to exampine the reality of the situation.


Face it, you're ideology is stuck in a rut deeper than anything communists find themselves in.

As far as I know, Communism ( abolition of private property) has been an utter and complete failure which can be empirically shown. Talk about clinging to defunct ideologies. lol.

[Zurdito]

As far as I know, Communism ( abolition of private property) has been an utter and complete failure which can be empirically shown. Talk about clinging to defunct ideologies. lol.


hmmm...regardless of this, it was a "failure" which millions of people actually died to implement, and which had mass support, and even despite the failings of Stalinist regimes, which can still mobilise millions of supporters across the world. Now I don't think the Maoists in Nepal or India, or the Communist Party of France or Refundacion Comunista of Italy or the Cuban communists are real communists. I don't think Hugo Chavez is a socialist and neither is Die Linke of Germany. However, by promising socialism, these groups are at least able to mobilise millions of working class to support them, millions of people who want to see private property abolished. This despite the failings of the Stalinist states. Despite all our problems, in-fighting and inadequate leadership, despite 30 years of defeats for the working class and rampant globalisation, on the ground we at least still have a movement which mobilises tens of millions of people across the world.

Libertarianism, on the other hand, is nothing and never will be. When the entrepreneurs of the world are marching down to Parliament Square to abolish all government, then I will listen. Until then, yours is purely an internet ideology with no social base whatsoever. Even the World Bank is now talking about a global New Deal for the world's poor. The rich want this because it avoids revolution. So who are the entrepreneurs who will actually support your cause? There aren't any, they want nothing to do with people like you, free marketeers, who will be their scapegoat for "irresponsible capitalism". Your ideology amounts to telling capitalists to pay less taxes then even they themselves want to pay. when they say no, all you are is a useful idiot right-hand man who support their lobbying to get just as much liberalisation through as possible, but never dreaming of going as far as you want them too. And, I'm curious, how exactly do you intend to pressure them to go further than that?

[Dejavu]

If it were true, that good pay and decent living standards actually leads to higher profits, sweat shops would have been ended years ago.

You misunderstood this. Higher capital investment within industries that are profitable ( i.e. consumers like the particular commidites the business produces) leads to higher productivity. Higher productivity per laborer based on capital means available leads to higher wages and shorter working hours as has happened in most of the developed countries. Of course capital investment depends on the success of the business , marginal costs, and the skill level available in the labor force. Depending on the industry its more profitable to have a more labor intensive force and in other industry its more profitable to have capital intensive production. There is a balance sought by future looking investors and entrepreneurs constantly seek out and conditions change all the time forcing them to adapt. Btw, who are 'sweat shops' really bad for anyways? I hear frequently its American Labor Unions complaining about the outsourced factories. Little complaint comes from the people that actually work in those factories. Ever wonder why that is?
If outsourced labor absolutely hated those factories then there would be massive demonstrations world wide by those very people insisting that their governments exile those factories and greedy corporations.
The math isn't complicated. American Labor Unions complain because Unions are not at odds with corporations but rather with non-Union labor. In other words, the wage war on other labor not under their control rather than the corporations themselves. The people in those countries that work in the factories complain little because they know the alternative is far more grimm. What if all those factories dissapeared? How would families find work or make any money? Female and child prostitution maybe? Drugs? Criminals? Very likley.


Your analysis of increased wages and shorter hours in the US ignores the labor struggles that got those benefits, they wern't gained by benevolent Capitalists that wanted more productive workers.

Actually, the labor conditions were vastly improving by the time the stricter labor laws were instituted. An increase in capital and human capital ( more skilled labor) led to higher wages already and the child work force was on a sharp decline as parents now had enough savings to send their children to schools instead of needing that extra income. This is another case of government stepping in and taking credit for what was already happening through the market process and actually making employment opportunities worse for labor as a whole in the long run. Most Capitalists were not benevolent although there were great philanthropists that gave millions upon millions to the community for constructions of libraries, schools, hospitals, etc, moreso than government managed redistribution ever did ( Rockafeller , etc.) Venture Capitalists , those that didn't rely on govt subsidies, were ruthlessly efficient since without govt protection they were at the mercy of the market. Naturally the incentive existed for more efficient labor so it doesn't stand to reason that they wouldn't have desired productive labor.


Of coarse more capital investment (might) improve living conditions somewhat (without intense labor struggles), but the improvement is very un-proportional, meaning living conditions raise very little compared to teh wealth accumulted, imagen if they were proportional.

Majority of Americans have are comfortable or at least are satisfied with their homes. Most have more than one television set, more than one car, internet access, more than one phone service, a wardrobe of diversified clothes, diversity of food, sanitation, a mailbox, etc. The average American today has more , in terms of wealth, than even some of the notable feudal lords in the past. Majority of Americans are at least satisified with their pay in order to provide these things. Even the more run down neighborhoods here , the so-called poverty stricken areas of America, are wealthy paradises to the poverty striken peoples of Africa and India who would happily accept American poverty over African poverty.
This isn't saying poverty isn't a problem in America but in terms of scale with real poverty stricken nations it isn't the worse situation in the world.


Is that so, so what about Saudi Arabia, Pre-Castro Cuba ... China, all the banana republics and so on, that have gotten a ton of foreign investment. Capitalists care about despotic governments only if it limits their profit, and many times it helps their profit.

Theres two kinds of foreign investment. One is private investment, of course made by the private sector. The other is government to government aid in which wealth is forcibly extracted from one people by their government and sent , without their consent, to another government. Very rarely do private investors throw money at foreign governments unless they wish to puchase land which is a private investment by definition. I was talking about government to government aid , I.e. the U.S. government throwing taxpayer dollars at self-styled dictators or semi-dictators in developing countries in order to fund 'democracy.' This has been an utter failure especially since the U.S. government has thrown BILLIONS at African governments and little has changed, in fact, some things have gotten worse. Hint: The starving children argument doesn't stand up to the reality of how foreign aid is administered. Those children deserve to eat, I couldn't stress that enough, and they deserve a more honest system of aid.
In fact, the countries with the so-called 'sweat shops' managed to feed their children. Interesting isn't it?




They loose their (usually) disposable money, i.e. not their lively hood, hopefully they've diversified, labor looses everything, ever see a homeless guy on the street saying "Made a bad investment" If you did they guys an idiot, but you do see "lost my Job." The responsibility set on managers does'nt matter, no one asked the worker if they wanted someone else to be responsible for their work and if they were willing to take a lesser wage for it, those roles are not freely given, neither is the pay.

Well its foolish to invest all of your savings into an uncertain future. Most investors and entrepreneurs will try their hardest to cover losses but that doesn't always work out. There have been plenty of entrepreneurs that have tried and failed and ended up working for someone else for wages. The rate of wages depends on human capital and job skill. Its ridiculous and terribly inefficient to distribute jobs based on 'equality' and not quality. If the best skill I have to offer is being a machinist theres no reason I should have the engineering job unless I improve myself and obtain certifications showing my ability to perform the engineering job. The role of jobs and pay are not freely given and they shouldn't be. They should be as they are in market competition for the highest efficiency to benefit society as a whole in their capacity as consumers for the best stuff at the lowest prices.


The workers not investing in their own job is not a matter of choice, its not like workers are just afriad of messing up (they are anyway, they don't want to get fired). Its a matter of ability, the Capitalists control the money, thus they control whats being produced, sure its a risk, but they have the luxury of taking that risks, workers don't.

A worker can always invest into their own human capital making themselves more valuable to the work force. Like I said, the technician or machinist can learn , over time, to be an engineer. He can also accumulate experience at lower paying jobs based on his concurrent skill + experience and advance his productive value for the future. This is also admirable and usually people that achieve this are a great benefit to society. And if you understood how the market works, its not the producer or investor capitalist that controls whats produced, nor do they ultimately control the profits, its the consumers that control these things. If consumers like something, they increase their demand which imputes back to the productive stages. The opposite is true as well. The producer doesn't have a mind control device to make consumers by his stuff. The entrepreneur has to work the market to find out the best uses for allocating resources based on what consumers want.


Sure not all companies make it, but look at te big picture, massiave amounts of wealth is being made, and those who make it don't have it.

Ah but you're not looking passed a $9/hr paycheck. For instance, someone working in retail , at the register, sees a lot of money coming into the store from consumers if the retail is successful. From his point of view he sees all this income into his register and then sees he gets a tiny fraction of it on his paycheck. Naturally he assumes that the rest of the thousands coming in is going to bank accounts of the evil corporate heirarchy that sit in some skyscraper doing 'some thing,' or perhaps he might very well think doing nothing but sitting there smoking cigars eating crumpets getting fatter of his sweat. lol. What they don't see is all the costs the retail has to cover from the income. What they don't see is all the bills for production , transportation , loans, electricity, taxes, paying all the other workers, etc. It was interesting that I saw in an interview one time that some of the retail register workers thought that the corporation made 80% profit regularly lol. Naturally they would assume that since they only see whats mentioned above. In reality even the biggest retail corporations make at best 1 to 5% profit and many times they just break even.


Interesting since, most of the time the reasearch is being done by wage workers, the selling is being done by wage workers, so is the actual work, if you want to talk about legitimate market processes you can have no objection to a worker being paid exactly what he produces is worth on the market, and if he decides to have a sales man, or whatever, he can pay that person, if that were the case there would be no Capitalist.

Yeah but in the case of this salesman, what is he selling? How did he come about obtaining the commodity to sell? Somebody created the situation for him to have that particular commodity to sell in the first place. If a salesman is self employed and produces his own goods to sell and does everything single handedly : savings,investment,production from the drawing board to fruition then he deserves every penny, absolutely. Of course, selling within a company with more employees doesn't create that situation. Somebody does one part of production , another person does another part of production , someone is paying for the electricity and machines, someone is designing the stuff, someone is marketing the stuff , etc.


Take away wealth inequalities and Capitalits are 100% unnessesary.

Only if we want to be 100% economically ignorant.

[Dejavu]

hmmm...regardless of this, it was a "failure" which millions of people actually died to implement, and which had mass support, and even despite the failings of Stalinist regimes, which can still mobilise millions of supporters across the world.

Uh huh. Hitler influenced millions as well. Other countries run of fascist messages of extreme nationalism and protectionism ( except they don't call it fascism) and it can mobilize the 'masses.'


This despite the failings of the Stalinist states. Despite all our problems, in-fighting and inadequate leadership, despite 30 years of defeats for the working class and rampant globalisation, on the ground we at least still have a movement which mobilises tens of millions of people across the world.

Basically you're saying the illusion of a functional pure communist society still deceives people. I don't see how even you would not think its an illusion since you just listed all the typical and certain shortcomings. I don't deny that egalitarian rhetoric still works when you promise people you'll cure all their problems. You're absolutely right.


When the entrepreneurs of the world are marching down to Parliament Square to abolish all government, then I will listen. Until then, yours is purely an internet ideology with no social base whatsoever.

And what can entrepreneurs do against government and capitalists coddled by government? Remember who wields the monopoly on jurisprudence and violence.
See, the egalitarian rhetoric of Communism only seems to work in struggling countries because they are false promises usually made by somewhat charismatic leaders ( same thing with fascistic messages). In more developed countries pure communism is laughed at and indeed it is has a following in the legions of ignorance. (Lenin's useful idiots).


Your ideology amounts to telling capitalists to pay less taxes then even they themselves want to pay. when they say no, all you are is a useful idiot right-hand man who support their lobbying to get just as much liberalisation through as possible, but never dreaming of going as far as you want them too. And, I'm curious, how exactly do you intend to pressure them to go further than that?

No, I advocate open competition and all things in the economy to be subject to market reward and punishment. Capitalists that align themselves with the state would hate a free market more than any tax hike. They would be then subject to consumer sovereignty and the government shield vanishes. Why do you think Republicans are such big statists?

[Zurdito]

I don't see how even you would not think its an illusion since you just listed all the typical and certain shortcomings.


Not at all, I just listed the shortcomings of those movement's leadership. However I do not think that these movements are just one big con, rather, they rest on and mislead the genuien class struggle of the working class - jsut as reformist parties do. The existence of these parties shows that the working class is struggling against the day to day contradictions with capital which it confronts.

[Dejavu]

Not at all, I just listed the shortcomings of those movement's leadership. However I do not think that these movements are just one big con, rather, they rest on and mislead the genuien class struggle of the working class - jsut as reformist parties do. The existence of these parties shows that the working class is struggling against the day to day contradictions with capital which it confronts.

You're making the same typical argument that apologists make for a murderous and genocidal system thats engineered to breed totalitarian governments. Its not merely the leaders, its the movement itself since different leaders with separate agendas have all tried the same thing and the final result was atrocious standards of living for the people. ( but the leaders and people's 'revolutionaries' lived pretty well. lol) The system is inherently flawed and counter to prosperity when measured against real world economics. Its not a math equation where you can simply change a variable ( i.e. a leader or something) and try out the theory while millions suffer like in the communist soup kitchen prison states. Its simply not worth the lives of that many people to keep on tampering with ideas of egalitarian bull$hit.

You, I , and the rest of the working class struggle the most against government. Its not private capitalists stealing what we earn with our labor rather its the state taxing us up the ass. The true class struggle exist between the productive class ( business, workers, people that create(transform) capital) and the predatory class ( government, free riders.)

The state, and especially democracy ( in any form) will NOT do whats best for YOU. Only you can do that.

[Demogorgon]

Reagan's rhetoric against government meant little. His actions speak louder. Even the most astute modern liberals ( American social democrats) claim that Ronald Reagan expanded the size and scope of government tremendously. Even George W.Bush and Nixon ran on small government platforms but their actions are contrary to the rhetoric. I suggest reading the book listed below. Its an anti-conservative book written by an ardent American modern liberal ( social democrat), Bill Press:


Given that the rest of your post relies on blatant falsehoods (or else an appalling understanding of history, current affairs and economics), I do not hold out much hope for honesty here.

But has it never occurred to you that the reason all these free market capitalist Governments have greatly expanded the state is because capitalism requires a large state?

[Bud Struggle]

But has it never occurred to you that the reason all these free market capitalist Governments have greatly expanded the state is because capitalism requires a large state?

No, I don't think so. States get larger because people in charge of things like to be in charge even more things. You could say the same about Communism. Why was the SU and why is China both mega bureaucracies?

Laissez faire Capitalism worked just fine for lots of people for years and years (other people didn't make out so well, true.) And that was the "Capitalism" that Marx wrote about--he had no clue that Capitalism would ever merge with the state to become Social Democracy.

Free markets are long gone. So is Communism--now there's a "third" thing.

[Dejavu]

But has it never occurred to you that the reason all these free market capitalist Governments have greatly expanded the state is because capitalism requires a large state?

No. This has not occurred to me because such a statement is completely false. The free market and expanded states and overbearing governments are incompatible. You need to have one or the other. The only way capitalism can function in a large state is if its nerfed quite a bit and forged into a 'mixed economy' guided by the whims of the state.
There is nothing you can show me about our current economic system that denotes free market capitalism. Go ahead and try to show this to be true. ;)


Laissez faire Capitalism worked just fine for lots of people for years and years (other people didn't make out so well, true.) And that was the "Capitalism" that Marx wrote about--he had no clue that Capitalism would ever merge with the state to become Social Democracy.

Actually Tom, this isn't completely accurate. Most of Marx's propaganda against capitalism came from the British conservative Tories from whom Engels acquired information from when the Tories, in favor of heavy regulation and mercantilism, were battling with British free market liberals, especially those of the Manchester school.

Naturally you would expect the Tories to record everything that they perceive wrong with free market enterprise. Marx and Engels simply used this information collected by the Tories for their own purposes and mixed it with liberal positions by manipulating writings from notable liberals about class struggles

[Bud Struggle]

[quote]Actually Tom, this isn't completely accurate. Most of Marx's propaganda against capitalism came from the British conservative Tories from whom Engels acquired information from when the Tories, in favor of heavy regulation and mercantilism, were battling with British free market liberals, especially those of the Manchester school.

Naturally you would expect the Tories to record everything that they perceive wrong with free market enterprise. Marx and Engels simply used this information collected by the Tories for their own purposes and mixed it with liberal positions by manipulating writings from notable liberals about class struggles

Yea, well OK. I understand what you are saying, Dejavu. But my point that the "Capitalism" that Marx wrote against is long gone, still remains. Today's Capitalism is nothing that Marx had any conception of--so any theories he wrote have nothing to do with the realities of 2008 Capitalism.

[Demogorgon]

No. This has not occurred to me because such a statement is completely false. The free market and expanded states and overbearing governments are incompatible. You need to have one or the other. The only way capitalism can function in a large state is if its nerfed quite a bit and forged into a 'mixed economy' guided by the whims of the state.
There is nothing you can show me about our current economic system that denotes free market capitalism. Go ahead and try to show this to be true. ;)
Well the trouble with that is that you have a definition of capitalism that has never existed anywhere except in you own head. So naturally no real world situation will correspond to your outlook because your outlook is utterly irrelevant to the real world


Actually Tom, this isn't completely accurate. Most of Marx's propaganda against capitalism came from the British conservative Tories from whom Engels acquired information from when the Tories, in favor of heavy regulation and mercantilism, were battling with British free market liberals, especially those of the Manchester school.

Naturally you would expect the Tories to record everything that they perceive wrong with free market enterprise. Marx and Engels simply used this information collected by the Tories for their own purposes and mixed it with liberal positions by manipulating writings from notable liberals about class struggles
And that just goes to show how little you know about both history and economics. Marx and Engels supported the Classical Liberals as far as they had gone but wanted to move things much further. The notion that they were influenced by the old Tories is absolutely absurd. Do you even know what the Tory position was back then?

Incidentally, it is interesting you mention the Manchester school so favourably given how pivotal it was in massively expanding the scope and power of the British Government.

[Demogorgon]

And that was the "Capitalism" that Marx wrote about--he had no clue that Capitalism would ever merge with the state to become Social Democracy.

Free markets are long gone. So is Communism--now there's a "third" thing.
Of course he knew it would happen. He lived long enough to see it. Bismarck made rather a lot of concessions tot he Social Democrats int he end after all...

The economic situation has changed a great deal since Marx, that is true, I will be the last person to disagree, but the fundamentals of his position remain as valid as they ever were. We need to adapt the view to the twenty first century sure. But the principles he sketched out work fine. There is no third way. There never was a completely free market and there will never be a completely state run economy. All economies are mixed economies. That isn't going to change. The question is whether the eonomy will be worker run or employer run.

[Dejavu]

Well the trouble with that is that you have a definition of capitalism that has never existed anywhere except in you own head. So naturally no real world situation will correspond to your outlook because your outlook is utterly irrelevant to the real world

How about writing something relevant? Give me an example in our current economic system that is free market capitalism.


And that just goes to show how little you know about both history and economics. Marx and Engels supported the Classical Liberals as far as they had gone but wanted to move things much further. The notion that they were influenced by the old Tories is absolutely absurd. Do you even know what the Tory position was back then?

Moving things 'further' would result in a total free market since thats the direction the liberals were going in. On the contrary, Marx wanted to go in exactly the opposite direction. Classical liberal intellectuals and economists supported wages, factory work, and little to no regulation. Marx's position was much closer to the Tories of England. Prior to the CM, much of Engels' research was done in London and most of his references were from the Tories' criticisms of free enterprise.


Yea, well OK. I understand what you are saying, Dejavu. But my point that the "Capitalism" that Marx wrote against is long gone, still remains. Today's Capitalism is nothing that Marx had any conception of--so any theories he wrote have nothing to do with the realities of 2008 Capitalism.

Ok.


The question is whether the eonomy will be worker run or employer run.

How about consumer ( and, hence, society) run?

[Demogorgon]

How about writing something relevant? Give me an example in our current economic system that is free market capitalism.
Okay, Britain, France, Germany, America, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Norway, Israel, Switzerland, Kenya, India, Pakistan, Iran, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Finland, Italy, Ukraine, Poland...

That enough for just now? Your trouble is you will instead whine and cry and say they aren't free market economies because they all have public sectors. The trouble is you are adhering to your own private definition of free market capitalism, rather than any kind of conventional one.

Moving things 'further' would result in a total free market since thats the direction the liberals were going in. On the contrary, Marx wanted to go in exactly the opposite direction. Classical liberal intellectuals and economists supported wages, factory work, and little to no regulation. Marx's position was much closer to the Tories of England. Prior to the CM, much of Engels' research was done in London and most of his references were from the Tories' criticisms of free enterprise. Oh go and learn some history (and learn what Marx argued for as well come to that, still think he invented the LTV?). The Liberals in England's political goal was to liberate the bourgeoisie from the remants of the feudal class. The Tories wanted to defend the Feudal landowners. Marx wanted to take things further by liberating the working people as well. That is why, whereas the Liberals wanted the franchise extended to a limited degree, Marx wanted Universal suffrage and so on.

Your notion that the Liberals were somehow committed to a free market by your definition is simply junk, they greatly expanded the British state in both economic and social terms and brought in many highly intrusive economic regulations that it took the Labour party to eventually repeal.

The great Liberal disagreement with the Tories concerned the Corn laws, the Liberals who represented the new business elite who would greatly benefit from cheap imported corn to sell on wanted to remove the tariffs, whereas the Tories (who became the Conservative party at this point) wanted to retain the tariffs as they represented the landowners both in Britain and in the colonies for who the corn laws were greatly beneficial. Neither position is relevant to Marx's economic views. That you say that Marx's economic views were based on pre-Victorian English economic policies indicates that you know nothing about British history and nothing about Marx's views. Your complete lack of knowledge on the basic facts you attempt to argue on is incredibly damaging to your credibility. You seem to be able to offer us nothing except what you have regurgitated from semi-understood wikipedia articles.


How about consumer ( and, hence, society) run?
Oh and is this consumer not going to have to do any work? If people want to consume they (mostly) have to get a job to gain buying power. The point is whether they are going to have autonomy at work and democratically run the workplace or whether they will have to submit to the will of an employer.

[Dejavu]

That enough for just now? Your trouble is you will instead whine and cry and say they aren't free market economies because they all have public sectors. The trouble is you are adhering to your own private definition of free market capitalism, rather than any kind of conventional one.

The definition fails to be demonstrated by all those states even by the standard conventional definition of free markets:

an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free%20market

Multiple sources cited on that website.

Anyway:


Oh go and learn some history (and learn what Marx argued for as well come to that, still think he invented the LTV?).

I never said Marx invented the LTV but that doesn't make it right. :laugh:


Your notion that the Liberals were somehow committed to a free market by your definition is simply junk, they greatly expanded the British state in both economic and social terms and brought in many highly intrusive economic regulations that it took the Labour party to eventually repeal.

Actually the fact that you acknowledge the liberals got rid of the Corn laws in the next sentence only proves that they did espouse a more free market policy. Self defeating argument for you. It was the Labour party and the socialist minded British of the late 19th century that expanded the power of parliment and the Labour party continued this policy well after WW2.


The great Liberal disagreement with the Tories concerned the Corn laws, the Liberals who represented the new business elite who would greatly benefit from cheap imported corn to sell on wanted to remove the tariffs, whereas the Tories (who became the Conservative party at this point) wanted to retain the tariffs as they represented the landowners both in Britain and in the colonies for who the corn laws were greatly beneficial.

I'm gonna assume you're very young and impressionable so this fallacy is forgiven :).
How is it benefiting 'big business' by taking down the tariffs? You said that both the Tories and Liberals were trying to defend big business but how can this be so when they desired the opposite things? How is affordable wheat products for the common British citizen a bad thing? If anything ,the liberals would bring the protected businesses to the mercy of the market which is exactly what happened and more British people were fed. Europe's population exploded and SURVIVED and actually DID BETTER than their predecessors. We're talking about average common people here. If you want to see a place with a population boom that wasn't effected by capitalism take a look at Calcutta, India at the time.

Are you thinking more broadly yet?


That you say that Marx's economic views were based on pre-Victorian English economic policies indicates that you know nothing about British history and nothing about Marx's views. Your complete lack of knowledge on the basic facts you attempt to argue on is incredibly damaging to your credibility. You seem to be able to offer us nothing except what you have regurgitated from semi-understood wikipedia articles.

Well considering we both acknowledge Marx borrowed his LTV views ( even though he manipulated them) from the classical British economists this isn't so far off the mark. Furthermore, we have an enumerated list of what Marx planned to do with the economy in the Communist Manifesto. :

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm


Most of the demands listed here are very similar to the old mercantilist position which the free market liberals battled. Furthermore, similar demands appear in the German Nationalist Socialist (NAZI) proclamation.



Oh and is this consumer not going to have to do any work? If people want to consume they (mostly) have to get a job to gain buying power. The point is whether they are going to have autonomy at work and democratically run the workplace or whether they will have to submit to the will of an employer.

IN order to have something to purchase with he has to work at something. Workers and everyone else in society has the capacity of a consumer since they need to consume things to live. This system you're proposing eliminates investments and forces workers to save anyway and consume less because they have to take the responsibility of the profit-loss of the good. Also, workers couldn't get anything until the final product is out and theres no telling if society will desire their product because they have no method of calculating costs. Its a fantasy of young dreamers. ;)

[Green Dragon]

The question is whether the eonomy will be worker run or employer run.
[/QUOTE]

As long as the Marxists & Co. see this as the choice presented, they will never understand the cause of their failure.

And that is because:
It expresses a misunderstanding of capitalism, which in turn is attempted to be transferred into socialism.
And the misunderstanding is that the "employers" in a capitalist society dictate to the people what they will, and will not consume. The reality is that the consumers dictate to the capitalist what will and will not be produced.
Not surprisingly, the call for a "worker run" community, the "dictatorship of the proleteriat" is based upon the idea that workers will tell each other what each other will and will not consume. The result has of course been dictatorship, and economic squalor, and a cottage industry arising expalining the failures on conspiracies amongst the capitalists, or insufficient worker consciousness ect ect.

[Green Dragon]

The point is whether they are going to have autonomy at work and democratically run the workplace or whether they will have to submit to the will of an employer.[/QUOTE]

Oh? And the workers will work in whatever fashion they choose, regardless of the will of the consumers of those products?

[Demogorgon]

The definition fails to be demonstrated by all those states even by the standard conventional definition of free markets:

an economic system in which prices and wages are determined by unrestricted competition between businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free%20market

Multiple sources cited on that website.
Oh and I suppose you believe that a market is not a free market until that is entirely achieved? :lol: All economies are mixed economies. It is a question of trade off between public and private sector. Also even the definition you cite makes the point that your fantasy world economy can never exist. No Government intervention and no monopoly? It might be theoretically possible to have capitalism without Government intervention (though I doubt it) and it might be possible to have capitalism without monopoly (again I doubt it) but it is certainly not possible to have both. History and any sane kind of economic theory (just about all of them except Austrian school junk) shows us that a Government is required to break up monopolies

Anyway:


I never said Marx invented the LTV but that doesn't make it right. :laugh:
You have asserted it several times. See the problem with trying to draw all your "facts" from Wikipedia?


Actually the fact that you acknowledge the liberals got rid of the Corn laws in the next sentence only proves that they did espouse a more free market policy. Self defeating argument for you. It was the Labour party and the socialist minded British of the late 19th century that expanded the power of parliment and the Labour party continued this policy well after WW2.
Again a complete lack of understanding of history. The corn law debate was about the Liberal backed urban elite fighting the old Conservative backed rural elite. Lofty ideas about free trade had nothing to do with it. It was a stand off between two competing factions of business.

For the record incidentally it was a Conservative Government that repealed the Corn laws though it split the party permanently and the pro-repeal faction did have to side with the whigs and Liberal Radicals to get the bill through parliament. All the same that rather dents your rather limited account of the matter. Another flaw or relying too heavily on Wikipedia


I'm gonna assume you're very young and impressionable so this fallacy is forgiven :). Judging by your lack of knowledge combined with a single minded view you are right and your incredibly naive outlook on the world, not to mention your immature writing style, you cannot be more than 16 or 17 which would make you a good few years younger than me.

How is it benefiting 'big business' by taking down the tariffs? You said that both the Tories and Liberals were trying to defend big business but how can this be so when they desired the opposite things? How is affordable wheat products for the common British citizen a bad thing? If anything ,the liberals would bring the protected businesses to the mercy of the market which is exactly what happened and more British people were fed. Europe's population exploded and SURVIVED and actually DID BETTER than their predecessors. We're talking about average common people here. If you want to see a place with a population boom that wasn't effected by capitalism take a look at Calcutta, India at the time.

Are you thinking more broadly yet? I have been thinking broadly all along. You are stuck in your highly simplified "understanding of the situation however. The Corn law debate was between two business factions essentially. The faction who benefitted from the laws as they stood as it protected their own corn production and the faction that stood to benefit from investment in foreign corn production and importing it to Britain. Two different business factions desiring two very different things.

Incidentally you appear to be labouring under the bizarre delusion that I think the Corn laws were a good thing. Obviously they were not. They were there for the protection of the landed aristocracy and Britain had moved far past the stage where it could benefit from protectionism in that field.


Well considering we both acknowledge Marx borrowed his LTV views ( even though he manipulated them) from the classical British economists this isn't so far off the mark.
Conspiracy theories about manipulating the theory not withstanding, you do realise the likes of Adam Smith were radical liberals who opposed Mercantalism? Marx opposed Mercantilism too, but unlike Smith had the advantage of seeing many more decades pass and understood the Mercantalism was just an early stage of capitalism. Anyway...

Furthermore, we have an enumerated list of what Marx planned to do with the economy in the Communist Manifesto. :

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm


Most of the demands listed here are very similar to the old mercantilist position which the free market liberals battled. Furthermore, similar demands appear in the German Nationalist Socialist (NAZI) proclamation.
Now this is just utter shit. None of those policies have anything to do with mercantalism. And as for the Nazi comparison. Well for your sake we won't even go here. But there are many other members of this boaerd, many restricted who will have a field day with that


IN order to have something to purchase with he has to work at something. Workers and everyone else in society has the capacity of a consumer since they need to consume things to live. This system you're proposing eliminates investments and forces workers to save anyway and consume less because they have to take the responsibility of the profit-loss of the good. Also, workers couldn't get anything until the final product is out and theres no telling if society will desire their product because they have no method of calculating costs. Its a fantasy of young dreamers. ;)
How do you know what I am proposing? I have laid out a full model of what I propose to a grand total of one person in OI and that person was not you.

Suffice to say the fact you know nothing about Marxism and the various modern developments of it make it quite clear that you could never begin to guess what kind of model I propose.

Incidentally you seem to know nothing about how the modern economy works either. A firm's income does not come in periodic bursts. For most firms it is fairly constant.

Once again, see the problem with relying on Wikipedia?:laugh:

[Demogorgon]

As long as the Marxists & Co. see this as the choice presented, they will never understand the cause of their failure.

And that is because:
It expresses a misunderstanding of capitalism, which in turn is attempted to be transferred into socialism.
And the misunderstanding is that the "employers" in a capitalist society dictate to the people what they will, and will not consume. The reality is that the consumers dictate to the capitalist what will and will not be produced.
Not surprisingly, the call for a "worker run" community, the "dictatorship of the proleteriat" is based upon the idea that workers will tell each other what each other will and will not consume. The result has of course been dictatorship, and economic squalor, and a cottage industry arising expalining the failures on conspiracies amongst the capitalists, or insufficient worker consciousness ect ect.I think you will find it is you with a lack of understanding of what the choice entails. I never said that employers tell consumers what they will consume (though there is an extent of that due to non-rational sales persuasion). What employers do is gauge what consumers want and then have their workforce produce that for their personal profit. What I propose is that workers themselves determine what consumers want and produce it themselves according to democratic decision making and share the proceeds amongst themselves.

[Green Dragon]

What I propose is that workers themselves determine what consumers want and produce it themselves according to democratic decision making and share the proceeds amongst themselves.
[/QUOTE]

Which is fine. But there is nothing particularly uncapitalist about a worker owned industry. They exist now. The key phrase here is "democratic decision making" and what kinds of knowledge will be used in making these decisions. If the workers make their decisions as per the knowledge and environment of capiltalism, nothing much has changed. If the idea is to also change that capitalist environment to some sort of socialist one, then you also have to explain what that environment might look like, and what types of knowledge the workers might then be using in their "decision making."

[Demogorgon]

Which is fine. But there is nothing particularly uncapitalist about a worker owned industry. They exist now. The key phrase here is "democratic decision making" and what kinds of knowledge will be used in making these decisions. If the workers make their decisions as per the knowledge and environment of capiltalism, nothing much has changed. If the idea is to also change that capitalist environment to some sort of socialist one, then you also have to explain what that environment might look like, and what types of knowledge the workers might then be using in their "decision making."
Worker owned firms do exist now and all empirical evidence in fact suggests that they are more efficient than capitalist firms. However due to Capital's dominance, they can not compete on even terms (except in certain areas where historical good fortune has created different circumstances).

If you are asking me exactly how a future system will work well there are two answers. In the long run we cannot know how things will turn out, no one can write cookbooks for the future. In the short run I do have an answer, but it is too long to explain right now. But here is the stating point. Imagine for a moment that all firms were suddenly owned by their employees, each with an equal vote in decision making. Imagine further that society democratically controlled investment and finally that the Government properly planned such things as infrastructure improvement. Leaving all else equal, take it from there.

That is a rather simplified answer, but I am unfortunately a bit busy for a fuller one.

[Green Dragon]

[quote=Demogorgon;1125581]Worker owned firms do exist now and all empirical evidence in fact suggests that they are more efficient than capitalist firms.

Efficiency as defined how? As per capitalism or some other marker?



If you are asking me exactly how a future system will work well there are two answers. In the long run we cannot know how things will turn out, no one can write cookbooks for the future.

Which is true, so then we look at short term...


Imagine for a moment that all firms were suddenly owned by their employees, each with an equal vote in decision making.

Decision making based upon WHAT ideas?


Imagine further that society democratically controlled investment

Which would suggest that the employees of the firm do not have an equal vote in decision making, since the larger community might "democratically" decide to invest the labor of those employees in a direction those employees may themselves not wish to go. Long term I do not see how this results in "worker owned" industry, at least not in the manner I suspect you mean.


and finally that the Government properly planned such things as infrastructure improvement.

Well, yes, if everything was done properly, there would probably be less problems. Which of course begs the question of exactly what is "properly," how it is defined, who makes the determination and how ect.

[RGacky3]

Higher productivity per laborer based on capital means available leads to higher wages and shorter working hours as has happened in most of the developed countries. Of course capital investment depends on the success of the business , marginal costs, and the skill level available in the labor force.

Thats not nessesarily true, what many times it means is less workers, because less are needed.


Btw, who are 'sweat shops' really bad for anyways? I hear frequently its American Labor Unions complaining about the outsourced factories. Little complaint comes from the people that actually work in those factories. Ever wonder why that is?
If outsourced labor absolutely hated those factories then there would be massive demonstrations world wide by those very people insisting that their governments exile those factories and greedy corporations.

I take it you've never been to a 3rd world country or talked to anyone working in a sweat shop. In many of those countries people are simply killed if they try to organize, and many of them do insist and protest, dispite the danger.


Actually, the labor conditions were vastly improving by the time the stricter labor laws were instituted. An increase in capital and human capital ( more skilled labor) led to higher wages already and the child work force was on a sharp decline as parents now had enough savings to send their children to schools instead of needing that extra income. This is another case of government stepping in and taking credit for what was already happening through the market process and actually making employment opportunities worse for labor as a whole in the long run.

Before the laws were in, Labor struggles were making many of the canges, the laws came in not to take credit (really a rediculous explenation for why those laws came in to effect), but to suppress militant organized laabor which was getting revolutionary. Look at when FDRs reforms came in, things wern't doing very well, and the radical left had strong support, then what happend. Think of the late 1800s early 1900s when Capital was skyrocketing and millions were being made, and technoly advanced and labor became more skilled, did that lead to higher wages, and better conditions? No what it did lead to was a more militant labor movement which then pushed for that stuff.


Majority of Americans have are comfortable or at least are satisfied with their homes. Most have more than one television set, more than one car, internet access, more than one phone service, a wardrobe of diversified clothes, diversity of food, sanitation, a mailbox, etc. The average American today has more , in terms of wealth, than even some of the notable feudal lords in the past. Majority of Americans are at least satisified with their pay in order to provide these things. Even the more run down neighborhoods here , the so-called poverty stricken areas of America, are wealthy paradises to the poverty striken peoples of Africa and India who would happily accept American poverty over African poverty.
This isn't saying poverty isn't a problem in America but in terms of scale with real poverty stricken nations it isn't the worse situation in the world.

Your right, Capitalism is global, it knows no borders, so thats not a defence of Capitalism.


Theres two kinds of foreign investment. One is private investment, of course made by the private sector. The other is government to government aid in which wealth is forcibly extracted from one people by their government and sent , without their consent, to another government. Very rarely do private investors throw money at foreign governments unless they wish to puchase land which is a private investment by definition. I was talking about government to government aid , I.e. the U.S. government throwing taxpayer dollars at self-styled dictators or semi-dictators in developing countries in order to fund 'democracy.' This has been an utter failure especially since the U.S. government has thrown BILLIONS at African governments and little has changed, in fact, some things have gotten worse. Hint: The starving children argument doesn't stand up to the reality of how foreign aid is administered. Those children deserve to eat, I couldn't stress that enough, and they deserve a more honest system of aid.
In fact, the countries with the so-called 'sweat shops' managed to feed their children. Interesting isn't it?


I was'nt talking about government aid, private investment is what I'm talking about, and private investment has never been stopped because a dictator is rulling, and thats what makes corporations profits. Foreign aid is pretty much philathropy which ignores the root of the problem.

The countries with the so-called sweat shops, some people may manage to feed their children, interestingly enough, so did slaves.


The rate of wages depends on human capital and job skill. Its ridiculous and terribly inefficient to distribute jobs based on 'equality' and not quality. If the best skill I have to offer is being a machinist theres no reason I should have the engineering job unless I improve myself and obtain certifications showing my ability to perform the engineering job. The role of jobs and pay are not freely given and they shouldn't be. They should be as they are in market competition for the highest efficiency to benefit society as a whole in their capacity as consumers for the best stuff at the lowest prices.

The rate of wage does'nt depend on job skill, its the market, the market does'nt value skill in the same way it does'nt value social responsibility, what it values is profit, which means you will pay the least while gaining the most, that applies to labor as well. No one ever talked about distributing jobs, what I was saying was that implying that a Capitalists diserves the profits because of their wealth is rediculous.


What they don't see is all the bills for production , transportation , loans, electricity, taxes, paying all the other workers, etc. It was interesting that I saw in an interview one time that some of the retail register workers thought that the corporation made 80% profit regularly lol. Naturally they would assume that since they only see whats mentioned above. In reality even the biggest retail corporations make at best 1 to 5% profit and many times they just break even.

What percentage does labor as a whole get? Other corporations (like manufacturing, transportation, accounting) don't count, only their labor counts, look at the big picture, how much a percantage is labor getting as a whole apart from Capitalists as a whole?


What if all those factories dissapeared? How would families find work or make any money? Female and child prostitution maybe? Drugs? Criminals? Very likley.


thats what redistribution, and getting rid of property laws is all about.

[Dejavu]

Oh and I suppose you believe that a market is not a free market until that is entirely achieved?

By definition the market cannot be truly free without the elimination of regulation. Otherwise its a hampered market to whatever degree. Blaming the 'free market' on these problems isn't really applicable or a deliberate misnomer for the failings of of a hampered market.


All economies are mixed economies. It is a question of trade off between public and private sector. Also even the definition you cite makes the point that your fantasy world economy can never exist. No Government intervention and no monopoly?

It can exist it just eliminates any meaningful use for a government in the economy. This appears to me to be a concession by you that a free market and government expansion cannot exist side by side. You need to convey this admission and fact to some of your socialist buddies on here. Can you see how many people that profit from government intervention would have a problem with a free market?



It might be theoretically possible to have capitalism without Government intervention (though I doubt it) and it might be possible to have capitalism without monopoly (again I doubt it) but it is certainly not possible to have both. History and any sane kind of economic theory (just about all of them except Austrian school junk) shows us that a Government is required to break up monopolies

Whats not possible is like you suggested above; an expansive government and free market cannot exist together since they are the opposite of each other. The only kind of capitalism that you can have in a mixed economy is a state-bank-corporatism like we have now which is ideologically the opposite of its enemy, free market capitalism. There is a difference between natural monopoly and coercive monopoly. A coercive monopoly can only be done with the manipulative powers of the state. Namely by legally restricting competition. If a company produces and pleases enough consumers to dominate the market then what is wrong with this? They deserve that share of the market because they are doing the best job. Why have companies that can't keep up with consumer demands still around just sucking resources out that could be used for better alternative uses? You'll notice its rarely consumers that bring up anti-trust cases. Anti-trust charges originate with other companies that are less efficient than the leading company pleasing the consumers. The failing company would rather have government managed competition to keep them in business just so they can sell stuff that consumers don't want at higher prices. Is that really 'progressive?'




Again a complete lack of understanding of history. The corn law debate was about the Liberal backed urban elite fighting the old Conservative backed rural elite. Lofty ideas about free trade had nothing to do with it. It was a stand off between two competing factions of business.

If you want to think that you can but the results speak. British people were able to afford their grain at market prices instead of artificially high prices set by the British government. The intent of the Liberals 'could' have been on a mission to fly to Mars for profit but it matters little since their method of free trade brought the British people results they desired.



For the record incidentally it was a Conservative Government that repealed the Corn laws though it split the party permanently and the pro-repeal faction did have to side with the whigs and Liberal Radicals to get the bill through parliament. All the same that rather dents your rather limited account of the matte

Again , I don't see how this a bad thing? When people switch to a position that beneficial to the people then its a good thing isn't it?


The Corn law debate was between two business factions essentially. The faction who benefitted from the laws as they stood as it protected their own corn production and the faction that stood to benefit from investment in foreign corn production and importing it to Britain. Two different business factions desiring two very different things.

Which two business factions? Protectionism vs free trade? Absolutely. Naturally there were business interests to open up the market and take down the tariffs. But notice, the advocates for free trade weren't nestled by the government as the protectionists were. The result of free trade was market prices of grain for the British populace and increased prosperity and growth. Is this actually a bad thing?




Incidentally you appear to be labouring under the bizarre delusion that I think the Corn laws were a good thing. Obviously they were not. They were there for the protection of the landed aristocracy and Britain had moved far past the stage where it could benefit from protectionism in that field.

But you're statement suggests that you actually did thing the Corn laws were a good thing. Because you seem to think that Corn Laws were actually beneficial. Beneficial to whom? Lazy producers? Then in the same tone you criticize the people who led the charge to abolish the Corn laws. Either you're for or against them.



Conspiracy theories about manipulating the theory not withstanding, you do realise the likes of Adam Smith were radical liberals who opposed Mercantalism? Marx opposed Mercantilism too, but unlike Smith had the advantage of seeing many more decades pass and understood the Mercantalism was just an early stage of capitalism. Anyway...

Marx opposed free enterprise. He was willing to incorperate elements of Mercantilism into his communist system as described in the CM but wanted to go to further extremes. Mercantilism was an early stage of capitalism and thats why the free market won out as soon as Mercantilism showed its obvious flaws. But then it seems with the rise of socialism and 'progressivism' we clung back to Mercantilism , this time to address social issues.




Now this is just utter shit. None of those policies have anything to do with mercantalism.

They are strikingly similar. I can't believe you don't see that.


How do you know what I am proposing? I have laid out a full model of what I propose to a grand total of one person in OI and that person was not you.

Well please lay it out. I was responding to your comment about worker's democracies and showing you why it wouldn't work if you abolished private property along with it.


Suffice to say the fact you know nothing about Marxism and the various modern developments of it make it quite clear that you could never begin to guess what kind of model I propose.

I was waiting to stick this quote in here somewhere. I guess this is a good place:


Max Eastman, a prominent old commie writes :
(Caution: Commie quote)

"It seems obvious to me now -- though I have been slow, I must say, in comparing the conclusion--that the institution of private property is one of the main things that have given man that limited amount of free-and-equalness that Marx hoped to render infinite by abolishing this institution. Strangely enough Marx was the first to see this. He is the one who informed us, looking backwards, that the evolution of private capitalism with its free market had been a precondition for the evolution of all our democratic freedoms. It never occurred to him, looking forward, that if this was so, these other freedoms might disappear with the abolition of the free market."







Incidentally you seem to know nothing about how the modern economy works either. A firm's income does not come in periodic bursts. For most firms it is fairly constant.

Actually they are stagnate or break even most of the time. Certain seasons allow for an increase of profit which is usually accompanied by a drop in prices ( again, a good thing for people.) Companies put out quarterly earnings and you can check it out. I'll give you a website if you want.



Once again, see the problem with relying on Wikipedia?

I'll actually take that as a compliment. This hints although you disagree with my positions they are very informative.



Thats not nessesarily true, what many times it means is less workers, because less are needed.


And? Whats wrong with this? Whats wrong with higher efficiency?


I take it you've never been to a 3rd world country or talked to anyone working in a sweat shop. In many of those countries people are simply killed if they try to organize, and many of them do insist and protest, dispite the danger.

I have been to those countries. I never noticed people protesting like you're suggesting. Taiwan is a pretty free place as far as freedom of information goes. They have a heterogeneous media from what I've seen and are not afraid to write about 'scandals' with some of the top officials. Yet, in Taiwan, where many people speak English too, I've seen the 'sweat shops' and I didn't read about anyone complaining. I've seen many regular Taiwanese citizens getting out there and buying stuff and I know factory work is the biggest sector there ( or at least I was told by locals.)
I think they don't protest because the money they make in Taiwan gets them what they need. Plus, they have a place to go work and can afford the basics. I imagine life would be a lot worse like I saw in other places with a larger population of prostitutes and slumlords.


Before the laws were in, Labor struggles were making many of the canges, the laws came in not to take credit (really a rediculous explenation for why those laws came in to effect), but to suppress militant organized laabor which was getting revolutionary. Look at when FDRs reforms came in, things wern't doing very well, and the radical left had strong support, then what happend. Think of the late 1800s early 1900s when Capital was skyrocketing and millions were being made, and technoly advanced and labor became more skilled, did that lead to higher wages, and better conditions? No what it did lead to was a more militant labor movement which then pushed for that stuff.

Labor movement was relatively weak until the 1930s. Even some of your fellow commies admit that here. I have a very different impression of late 19th / early 20th century. People were moving into houses in the thousands-millions, everyone was getting their hands on a car , supermarket industry skyrocketed. And these just weren't a handful of rich people, this was the average person that had these things.


Your right, Capitalism is global, it knows no borders, so thats not a defence of Capitalism.

Yeah and whats a better remedy for racism and nationalism and institutional borders?


I was'nt talking about government aid, private investment is what I'm talking about, and private investment has never been stopped because a dictator is rulling, and thats what makes corporations profits. Foreign aid is pretty much philathropy which ignores the root of the problem.

Private investments fall significantly with despotic governments because its simply stupid to risk your money in a system of high corruption and future uncertainty. Private investors usually get involved in industries like swarms. They see something doing well and they expand that business with capital. ( btw, thats a good thing, it creates jobs , lower prices, and even higher wages.) This can only be bad when the wrong signals are sent to investors like artificially low interest rates which are manufactured by Central Bank/Govt activity and can lead to deep recessions as a result. I agree with you TOTALLY on foreign aid except that its not even philanthropy.


The countries with the so-called sweat shops, some people may manage to feed their children, interestingly enough, so did slaves.

Again, you don't see people in those countries complaining they have a place to work. Its usually U.S. and Western based Unions that complain. Its not that the Unions want to really help the people in those countries. They don't want the competition. They want to make it the case that a company is forced to close down shop in foreign countries and they can care less what happens to the millions working abroad in factories once the factories vanish. Thats sick in my opinion.



The rate of wage does'nt depend on job skill, its the market, the market does'nt value skill in the same way it does'nt value social responsibility, what it values is profit, which means you will pay the least while gaining the most, that applies to labor as well. No one ever talked about distributing jobs, what I was saying was that implying that a Capitalists diserves the profits because of their wealth is rediculous.

Ok, you're partially right. The market price of labor is determined on how SOCIETY values the productivity of that labor. This is assuming we have an unhampered or mostly unhampered market where consumers get the say-so in what is to be produced and what is not to be produced. If you are labor and in an industry thats highly valued by consumers ( i.e. being R&D for Ipods) the chances are you're gonna be doing better than the guy thats R&D for fish flavored milk shakes. Labor market works on the same principle of supply and demand like every other market. Ultimately, if society is allowed to vote with their dollars in an unhampered market on what is to be produced and who is to make money and who is not to make money then this is the greatest social voice we can have. Capitalists don't 'deserve' wealth unless they please consumers (i.e. contribute to giving people some thing they want like Ipods and not fish flavored milkshakes). The only way the capitalist in the fish flavored milk shake industry can rip money off the people is if the government is coddling him. The market would kick this joker to the curb.






What percentage does labor as a whole get? Other corporations (like manufacturing, transportation, accounting) don't count, only their labor counts, look at the big picture, how much a percantage is labor getting as a whole apart from Capitalists as a whole?

How do you determine what 'labor as a whole' gets since there is an inherent division of labor? Is there some objective unit of measurement? I don't understand this question.



thats what redistribution, and getting rid of property laws is all about.

In other words, legalized theft and servitude?

[Demogorgon]

By definition the market cannot be truly free without the elimination of regulation. Otherwise its a hampered market to whatever degree. Blaming the 'free market' on these problems isn't really applicable or a deliberate misnomer for the failings of of a hampered market.
According to Chicago School research a capitalistic economy cannot meaningfully exist without a public sector comprising at least 20% of the economy. Your notion of the economy being 100% private sector is simply not relevant to any kind of real world discussion. A capitalist economy simply cannot exist in anything other than the most trivial manner, without a Government sector.


It can exist it just eliminates any meaningful use for a government in the economy. This appears to me to be a concession by you that a free market and government expansion cannot exist side by side. You need to convey this admission and fact to some of your socialist buddies on here. Can you see how many people that profit from government intervention would have a problem with a free market?
And what are you talking about here? A Government sector can grow alongside a private sector that is also growing so long as the economy itself is growing. In percentage terms though there will always be a trade off.


Whats not possible is like you suggested above; an expansive government and free market cannot exist together since they are the opposite of each other. The only kind of capitalism that you can have in a mixed economy is a state-bank-corporatism like we have now which is ideologically the opposite of its enemy, free market capitalism. There is a difference between natural monopoly and coercive monopoly. A coercive monopoly can only be done with the manipulative powers of the state. Namely by legally restricting competition. If a company produces and pleases enough consumers to dominate the market then what is wrong with this? They deserve that share of the market because they are doing the best job. Why have companies that can't keep up with consumer demands still around just sucking resources out that could be used for better alternative uses? You'll notice its rarely consumers that bring up anti-trust cases. Anti-trust charges originate with other companies that are less efficient than the leading company pleasing the consumers. The failing company would rather have government managed competition to keep them in business just so they can sell stuff that consumers don't want at higher prices. Is that really 'progressive?'Making stuff up now? You are basically trying to say that monopoly can only come about through the Government (frequently asserted, never proven) but are hedging your bets by then saying should monopoly go on to exist where there is definitely no Government intervention, you claim the monopoly is actually a good thing. The evidence offered amounts to "because I say so"



If you want to think that you can but the results speak. British people were able to afford their grain at market prices instead of artificially high prices set by the British government. The intent of the Liberals 'could' have been on a mission to fly to Mars for profit but it matters little since their method of free trade brought the British people results they desired.

Again , I don't see how this a bad thing? When people switch to a position that beneficial to the people then its a good thing isn't it?

Which two business factions? Protectionism vs free trade? Absolutely. Naturally there were business interests to open up the market and take down the tariffs. But notice, the advocates for free trade weren't nestled by the government as the protectionists were. The result of free trade was market prices of grain for the British populace and increased prosperity and growth. Is this actually a bad thing?

But you're statement suggests that you actually did thing the Corn laws were a good thing. Because you seem to think that Corn Laws were actually beneficial. Beneficial to whom? Lazy producers? Then in the same tone you criticize the people who led the charge to abolish the Corn laws. Either you're for or against them.
Now this garbage just shows you cannot even grasp a very simple concept. The point is no that the Corn laws were a good thing, because they obviously were not. The point is that the laws were repealed not due to lofty ideals about free trade but about a conflict between businesses. The businessmen producing corn in Britain and importing from the Empire wanted to keep the corn laws for obvious reasons and the businessmen wishing to import from elsewhere wanted rid of them. Both had substantial representation in Parliament and hence there was a huge fight.

You are taking a ridiculously Whiggish approach to history "and the the Liberals abolished the corn laws and this was a Good Thing" Mind you seeing as your history does seem to come from 1066 And All That, that is not surprising. This wasn't about the good Liberals with their freedom loving principles. It was about them backing their constituency. The Liberals vastly expanded the British State wherever it benefitted their backers. Your childish view that they wanted to ack capitalism or that the British State looked anything like the sort of thing you advocate just shows your ignorance.


Marx opposed free enterprise. He was willing to incorperate elements of Mercantilism into his communist system as described in the CM but wanted to go to further extremes. Mercantilism was an early stage of capitalism and thats why the free market won out as soon as Mercantilism showed its obvious flaws. But then it seems with the rise of socialism and 'progressivism' we clung back to Mercantilism , this time to address social issues. I take it you don't actually know what Mercantilism is, but thought you could make yourself look clever by referring to it?

Allow me to enlighten you. Mercantilism is based on the belief that international trade is a zero-sum game. It also has the belief that a country's wealth can be gauged by its stock of bullion. Hence, the view states, a Government should engage in a protectionist foreign policy raising tariffs on imported good and hence maintaining a positive balance of trade.

It does not go for Government intervention beyond what is necessary in the Domestic economy, indeed it is in fact very much free market. Rather its position is simply that a Government should raise tariffs in order to increase the flow of bullion into the country.

Now show me where Marx went for tariffs and a focus on how much precious metal the country possessed?


They are strikingly similar. I can't believe you don't see that.
Perhaps he placed a secret message into that list that I have not been able to decypher, but otherwise there is certainly nothing there concerning maintaining a positive balance of trade or increasing the amount of bullion in the economy.


Well please lay it out. I was responding to your comment about worker's democracies and showing you why it wouldn't work if you abolished private property along with it.
I don't know what your definition of showing me something is, but quoting a mangled version of what you read on Wikipedia that Von Mises once argued does not constitute proving anything.


I was waiting to stick this quote in here somewhere. I guess this is a good place:
Max Eastman, a prominent old commie writes :
(Caution: Commie quote)

"It seems obvious to me now -- though I have been slow, I must say, in comparing the conclusion--that the institution of private property is one of the main things that have given man that limited amount of free-and-equalness that Marx hoped to render infinite by abolishing this institution. Strangely enough Marx was the first to see this. He is the one who informed us, looking backwards, that the evolution of private capitalism with its free market had been a precondition for the evolution of all our democratic freedoms. It never occurred to him, looking forward, that if this was so, these other freedoms might disappear with the abolition of the free market."

Well Max Eastman was hardly a Communist when he said that, was he? Anyway his view is filled with basic factual errors. Saying that Marx was the first person to come to this view for example is simply wrong.

But there is an even more fundamental flaw. He claims things like private property and the market came about suddenly and brought freedom with them. Yet this is just false. Markets and private property existed before Capitalism, Before Feudalism as well come to that. Indeed the aspect of Capitalism that brought greater freedom was that it heavily cut back on many property rights, abolishing feudal rights to partial ownership of people for example.

If we are to go along with this line of logic, then we must conclude that reducing the power property brings (reducing property rights) is what brings more freedom.


Actually they are stagnate or break even most of the time. Certain seasons allow for an increase of profit which is usually accompanied by a drop in prices ( again, a good thing for people.) Companies put out quarterly earnings and you can check it out. I'll give you a website if you want.
You are confusing a whole bunch of different things. This started with you making a ham-fisted attempt to appeal to the nonsensical Austrian notion that a Capitalist supplies time (deferring future consumption, not gaining benefit until production is completed and other simplified garbage) but I pointed out that rather than a firm having no income while it produces and then getting a sudden burst of income once it has finished is nonsense, because that is not how firms function. They are getting a fairly stable rate of income unless there are special circumstances involved.

Faced with this you now try to change the subject with talk of Quarterly reports on earnings. Well what you have there is in fact generally profit, which is affected by changes in a firms r&d investment and so on. Also there is the fact that you will be looking only at a few big companies that feature in the news. They are not the standard. If you want a better indication of how a firm fairs over time look at whether its share price is varying greatly, whether the share dividends it pays out vary greatly and so forth. The fact is that does not happen normally. So nice try, but sorry.


I'll actually take that as a compliment. This hints although you disagree with my positions they are very informative.
Your positions are informative? :lol: Only as a case study of teenage political fantasies. Like I say, learn some economics, learn some history and also some logic come to that and your posts might then contain something informative. Until that time, I rather doubt your posts will become any more "informative"



Private investments fall significantly with despotic governments because its simply stupid to risk your money in a system of high corruption and future uncertainty.Which is why nobody invests in places like China, Singapore, Pakistan etc.

Oh wait....

[Schrödinger's Cat]

He was willing to incorperate elements of Mercantilism into his communist system as described in the CM but wanted to go to further extremes. Mercantilism was an early stage of capitalism and thats why the free market won out as soon as Mercantilism showed its obvious flaws. But then it seems with the rise of socialism and 'progressivism' we clung back to Mercantilism , this time to address social issues.
This has to be some of the best sarcasm I've ever read. Congratulations.

I recommend taking a course on Europe circa 1500 onwards. Your understanding of mercantilism and Marxism are botched by Austrian pseudo-logic. By the time Marx was formulating his ideology the Smithonian view had already prevailed in much of the industrializing world - beyond tariffs meant to encourage internal business, mercantile efforts were dying away. Your mistaking regional protection for workers protection is a grave mistake.

Of course, you can continue to argue that Marx calling for public education and the abolishment of child labor was just an extension of mercantilism. I'll just laugh.


Efficiency as defined how? As per capitalism or some other marker?

Capitalism doesn't operate on efficiency beyond profits and sustainability. Demogorgon answered your question in his other post: empirical evidence. Wants are satisfied. Worker-owned operations tend to produce more for less hours - with the same, or better quality (due to those enterprises encouraging input). Common sense dictates that more will be done when there is a vested interest in success. Furthermore, most sociologists agree that cooperation brings better results than competition and controlled actions. Whereas it's perfectly healthy to compete (with no dramatic losses - like jobs), cooperation encourages everyone to contribute what they can due to social pressures like peer review, praise, and friendship. Some of these sociologists are even calling for the entire way we handle education to be restructured so that classes do not focus on competition.

[RGacky3]

These types of posts generally get very very sticky and of topic, where each point is argued individually back and forth, but I suppose there is no other way :).


Yeah and whats a better remedy for racism and nationalism and institutional borders?


I said Capitalism is global, labor is'nt global (giving it a huge disadvantage), Capitalism is mobile and labor is'nt. My point was that you can't critique capitalism just on one nation, because its a (Pretty much) global system. Its also a great way for nations to keep their people in check, while letting Caitalists profit away.


And? Whats wrong with this? Whats wrong with higher efficiency?

Nothing, as long as its for the Social good, efficiency does'nt mean anything if its just for the profit of a few.


Private investments fall significantly with despotic governments because its simply stupid to risk your money in a system of high corruption and future uncertainty. Private investors usually get involved in industries like swarms. They see something doing well and they expand that business with capital. ( btw, thats a good thing, it creates jobs , lower prices, and even higher wages.) This can only be bad when the wrong signals are sent to investors like artificially low interest rates which are manufactured by Central Bank/Govt activity and can lead to deep recessions as a result.

Empirically this is just wrong, many many despotic Capitalist governments are and were embrased by private investments, and generally the corruption is in the Capitalists favor, because of coarse, the Capitalits have the money to corrupt :P.


In other words, legalized theft and servitude?

no, Property laws are legalized theft and servitude, a guy makes something, his boss gets it, if the guy who makes it keeps it he goes to prison, aka. extortion, and if he does'nt keep making it for the boss he has no living aka servitutde.


If you are labor and in an industry thats highly valued by consumers ( i.e. being R&D for Ipods) the chances are you're gonna be doing better than the guy thats R&D for fish flavored milk shakes. Labor market works on the same principle of supply and demand like every other market. Ultimately, if society is allowed to vote with their dollars in an unhampered market on what is to be produced and who is to make money and who is not to make money then this is the greatest social voice we can have. Capitalists don't 'deserve' wealth unless they please consumers (i.e. contribute to giving people some thing they want like Ipods and not fish flavored milkshakes). The only way the capitalist in the fish flavored milk shake industry can rip money off the people is if the government is coddling him. The market would kick this joker to the curb.


You talk about voting with dollors, but you for get, 10% own 90%, SOoooo, they get the vote, meaning Capitalism does'n produce for society, it produces for money, profit. This is Why American farmers keep getting subsidies, the same with many Corporations,

When it comes to profit they want a free market, but they want to Socialize looses.


Your talk about workers in sweatshops being grateful for having jobs is completely baseless and rediculous, its really just based on your guessing.

[Joby]

$15,000? What are you going to open, a half-decent Subway franchise? You better rethink that strategy before you pitch it out there - maybe take a few business classes and reassess yourself. $15,000 will not carry any retail business - your operating income will be nonexistent. I don't know precisely where you live, but for a decent spot of land here you would have to pay about $3,000/month for rent, and - at the new minimum wage - one full-time employee would cost you $15,000 per year. Successful businesses often go in the red for 2-4 years. And don't expect banks to help you out - they're there to catch you before you can incorporate. They're very skeptical about paying for business loans less than $200,000.

$15,000 could be a great down payment on a small business.

But you're absolutely right. With only $15,000, he's going to have to deliver. If he does not find something that the masses of society require, he is going to starve.

It's not like he's some worker who can punch his card and go home and not think about work. His livelihood depends on him appealing to the masses, or at least his niche market. He either needs to find a way to increase efficiency not seen in his business, or make a superior product/service. It's how capitalism works and leads to progression in just about every field.

And it's why he better make a damn tasty sandwhich (thereby benefiting you and me).

[Bud Struggle]

[/font]

$15,000 could be a great down payment on a small business.

But you're absolutely right. With only $15,000, he's going to have to deliver. If he does not find something that the masses of society require, he is going to starve.

It's not like he's some worker who can punch his card and go home and not think about work. His livelihood depends on him appealing to the masses, or at least his niche market. He either needs to find a way to increase efficiency not seen in his business, or make a superior product/service. It's how capitalism works and leads to progression in just about every field.

And it's why he better make a damn tasty sandwhich (thereby benefiting you and me).

Interesting point.

I retired to Florida from NYC (at 38) a couple of years ago. I walked around in my underware for a year and then at the behest of my wife (under pain of "withdrawal of sexual favors,") I got a job--I started my chemical business in my garage. The cost was $200 for the tank and $100 for the chemicals.

Now I have 135 employees and make pots of money. How easy is that?

Oh! And I think I'm going to have a "Soviet!" The workers are going to get together and discuss how THEY could run the business better.

Just think, the only REAL Soviet in the world will be in MY factory.

As with my reportage on Havana--I'll let you know more as the the facts unfold.

[Green Dragon]

Capitalism doesn't operate on efficiency beyond profits and sustainability. Demogorgon answered your question in his other post: empirical evidence. Wants are satisfied. Worker-owned operations tend to produce more for less hours - with the same, or better quality (due to those enterprises encouraging input). Common sense dictates that more will be done when there is a vested interest in success.

I had already indicated that there is nothing uncapitalist about a worker owned industry.
What defines "success?"



Furthermore, most sociologists agree that cooperation brings better results than competition and controlled actions. Whereas it's perfectly healthy to compete (with no dramatic losses - like jobs), cooperation encourages everyone to contribute what they can due to social pressures like peer review, praise, and friendship. Some of these sociologists are even calling for the entire way we handle education to be restructured so that classes do not focus on competition.
[/QUOTE]

I would suggest "social pressure" as described can certainly be seen as a "controlled actions." I would also suggest that that type of control is far more invidious and domineering than the controlled actions you are probably referring to (capitalist-worker). Its probabaly a reason why efforts to build a socialist systems have resulted in such brutal tyrannies.

[RGacky3]

I had already indicated that there is nothing uncapitalist about a worker owned industry.

Well what we want is a worker controlled Economy. Even better.


I would suggest "social pressure" as described can certainly be seen as a "controlled actions." I would also suggest that that type of control is far more invidious and domineering than the controlled actions you are probably referring to (capitalist-worker).

Is the Social pressure to hold the door open for an elderly person domineering? How about the Social pressure to use your blinker when making a lane change or turning? What about the Social pressure to give your chair on a buss or a train to a preagnant woman or an elderly person or disabled? Are those domineering? If you don't do it no ones going to take away your source of food and shelter, but they will think your an ass hole.


Its probabaly a reason why efforts to build a socialist systems have resulted in such brutal tyrannies.

You think that burtal tyannies came about because of social pressure to contribute to society? Really?

Or did it come from a small group consolidating authority under the guise of Socialism?

I don't know, which one makes more sense.

[Robert]

deleted

[Robert]

Well what we want is a worker controlled Economy. Even better.

Gacky, you're a bright guy. Now ... isn't the fact that even a true believer like yourself finds himself "restricted" tell you anything about the hard left that you don't like?

I hope you aren't one of these guys who begs to be unrestricted(?)

[RGacky3]

Gacky, you're a bright guy. Now ... isn't the fact that even a true believer like yourself finds himself "restricted" tell you anything about the hard left that you don't like?


Of coarse it does, much of the hard left is very closed minded, dogmatic, stuck up and exclusive, much of the hard left advocate things I would never support, such as centralized power, capital punishment, thought crimes (they won't call it that, but many of the arrests of 'counter-revoutionaries' end up being that exactly) and the such. Also I'm restricted because the CC here considers being anti-abortion (i.e. believing that a fetus is a person) is reactionary, nothing I can do about that :P.

Now that being said, the flaws in the hard left movement, does'nt at all justify Capitalism, State power, exploitation, inequality, oppression and everything that comes with a Capitalist and Statist system, and because Capitalism is an unjust, oppressive system, I am still obligated to fight it and oppose it, no matter what other people on the hard left do. Even if everyone on the hard left was a Stalinist, it would'nt justify Capitalism, Capitalism would still be wrong.

[Robert]

much of the hard left is very closed minded, dogmatic, stuck up and exclusive

I am in heaven. Don't say a word ... just let me bask in it. Ahhhh!

Seriously, thank you for your candor, and I do mean it that you are a smart and fair-minded guy. The injustice and oppressiveness you complain of will exist under any regime. As an economic system, I just don't know how you can replace capitalism without frustrating the will of the majority at this point in time. "We" want to be free to open a business if we want and to make a profit, and "we" want guaranteed access to basic education, health care, and a safety net to keep us from having to beg for pennies and bread in the street. But the majority won't support a violent revolution to accomplish any of those things. Not with unemployment at ... what is it now?

5.1%.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Don't say a word ... just let me bask in it.

*Makes a gut wrenching scream.*

Sorry, I had to be an arse. :)

[RGacky3]

I just don't know how you can replace capitalism without frustrating the will of the majority at this point in time. "We" want to be free to open a business if we want and to make a profit, and "we" want guaranteed access to basic education, health care, and a safety net to keep us from having to beg for pennies and bread in the street. But the majority won't support a violent revolution to accomplish any of those things. Not with unemployment at ... what is it now?


I suppose when you say 'we' your talking about the top 1% of the world

[Green Dragon]

[quote=RGacky3;1128411]Well what we want is a worker controlled Economy. Even better.



Says who? certainly not yourself, who wrote a very nice note explaining why defending a worker controlled economy would be authoritarian.



Is the Social pressure to hold the door open for an elderly person domineering? How about the Social pressure to use your blinker when making a lane change or turning? What about the Social pressure to give your chair on a buss or a train to a preagnant woman or an elderly person or disabled? Are those domineering? If you don't do it no ones going to take away your source of food and shelter, but they will think your an ass hole.


And being thought of as an asshole by your peers can be more controlling than being told by someone to do the same thing.



You think that burtal tyannies came about because of social pressure to contribute to society? Really?

Or did it come from a small group consolidating authority under the guise of Socialism?


When the socialists propose to place all power in the hands of a group of people (ie the majority) that is what you wind up with. And it because that socialism proposes to compel people to behave in a certain through social pressures.
Why else do people do what they do in a socialist community?